


Youth is Wasted on the Young

by betawho



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Humor, Monsters, Mystery, alien world, scifi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 58,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/pseuds/betawho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would happen if you didn't age? What would happen if 12 years old was as old as you'd ever get?</p><p>The 11th Doctor, Amy, and Rory visit a world where the Fountain of Youth isn't just a dream, but an everyday reality. The humans of this world have fought to adapt to some very strange conditions. But they aren't the only ones that have learned to adapt to ensure the survival of their race. Something has arrived, and it's growing, waiting its chance, and suddenly a world full of kids may seem very vulnerable indeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It spiraled down into the world, huge, and yet so tiny it was invisible. Banished, broken, yet not defeated. Its time would come.

The pearly, green and blue world hung innocently in space. Unaware of what had arrived.

———

“Where are we?” Amy asked, looking at the midnight street they were standing on. The Tardis had materialized in an alley, but while they appeared to be in a business district, it was pitch dark.

The Doctor looked up at the starry sky overhead, cocking his head as he studied them. “From those stars I’d say we’re in Andromeda.”

“The galaxy?” Rory asked with disbelief.

“Yup,” the Doctor said, checking his watch. “Four o’clock in the morning.”

Amy looked down the street, it was crowded with shops, sidewalks, and light poles. It looked like any other normal street. “You mean we landed downtown, in another galaxy?”

The Doctor grinned, then looked around the street with consternation, his brow furrowing. “Why aren’t there any lights on?” he asked. All the streetlights were unlit, all the shop windows black, not a light glimmered anywhere but from the stars.

“Maybe they’re conserving energy,” Rory said. “It _is_ the middle of the night.”

“I don’t think so,” Amy said, pointing.

A utility truck stood at the crossroads down the block. An electrician in coveralls balanced near the top of the utility pole, his bootspikes rammed into the wood. He was matter of factly rerouting a power line at the top. He turned to sling something in his toolbelt and something flashed past at the top of the pole.

He jerked back, there was a snap and a yell, and he started to fall.

“Oh no,” the Doctor leaped forward like a stone out of a catapult. He dashed across the road faster than Amy had ever seen him move. He got there just in time to be flattened into the asphalt by the falling lineman.

Amy and Rory ran over, the Doctor groaned and gently pushed the small man off his chest. He took a deep breath, then scrambled to his knees.

“Don’t move him!” Rory warned as the Doctor reached out to roll his catch over.

“Yes, I know, Rory,” the Doctor said, breathlessly. He carefully cradled the little man’s head, keeping the spine straight, as he eased him onto his back. The lineman was cussing a bluestreak.

Amy grinned. “I think he’s okay.”

The man screamed as his leg dropped onto the concrete. Amy jumped. Rory immediately bent down to examine it. “Broken.” He held the heel carefully in one hand and pressed the little man back down when he tried to sit up.

His voice was high, but had a very pungent vocabulary, Amy noted with admiration. The Doctor reached over and slipped off the hard hat and night vision goggles the lineman was wearing.

Amy gaped. “It’s a girl!”

A blond, twelve year old girl looked up at her with tears in her eyes and a thoroughly peeved expression.

“What happened?!” a new voice yelled out. A twelve year old boy, also in lineman’s overalls ran up, clutching a steaming cup in each hand. “Janet! Are you all right?”

“Hell, no I’m not all right, Sean. I’ve busted my goddam leg.” She was propped on her elbows, the tail of her ponytail sliding out of the back of her collar.

“Sean, is it?” the Doctor asked, standing up as the boy set the coffee down on the bumper of the utility truck. “I think you’d better call an ambulance.”

“Right, yes.” The flustered boy ran his hand through his hair and jogged around the truck to the cab, he jumped in and put in a call to his dispatcher.

Rory looked from the girl to the boy and back and scowled, “What are you kids...?”

The Doctor cut him off with a harsh shake of his head. Rory stared at him puzzled, but swallowed the rest of the question.

Seven minutes later an ambulance zoomed up on an air cushion, a rim of LED emergency lights cycled just below the edge of the roof. It settled to the ground and a trio of paramedics jumped out.

In a matter of minutes they had Janet’s leg immobilized and shifted her onto a grav gurney with Rory’s help. They towed her efficiently into the ambulance, locked down the gurney and sped off.

Sean got his act together, disposed of the coffee cups, and stowed Janet’s gear. “They’ll be taking her to Landing Memorial, I’d better follow. Thank you for helping.” He solemnly shook Rory’s and the Doctor’s hands.

“No problem,” the Doctor said. “Can you give us a lift?” he nodded to the truck. “I’d like to make sure she’s okay.”

The boy looked at the three large strangers, then looked at his truck. “Sure. It’ll be a squeeze though.”

“We’ll manage.”

The Doctor squeezed in next to the twelve year old driver, and Amy sat on Rory’s lap. The boy drove quickly, but competently to the hospital. Parking in the visitor’s area outside emergency. He led them inside.

Amy and Rory jerked to a stop in the doorway.

The ambulance had arrived only minutes before them. Janet was still being prepped and examined, swarmed around by doctors and nurses. An intern was pulling a bulky machine over the top of her leg, examining the fracture in the viewscreen on its top.

Janet was arguing with a nurse who was inserting an IV tube into her hand.

They were all kids. Not one of the people in the room was over twelve years old.

“Doctor, what’s going on?” Amy said in a whispered aside as Sean went to talk to his co-worker.

“We’re on the planet Feyanora,” the Doctor said, his eyes avid as he watched the scene, a huge grin on his face. He bounced on his toes in delight. “I’ve always wanted to come here.”

“Feyanora?” Rory asked. His eyes scanned the emergency room. It was a slow night, Janet was the only patient, but his expert eyes recognized a well run facility when he saw it, despite not recognizing some of the high tech gear.

“One of the human colonies,” the Doctor explained. “During one of the...”

He was interrupted by a harsh voice, “Excuse me!” the husky voice said impatiently, a stocky blond twelve year old boy pushed past the Doctor who was standing in the doorway.

He was one of those stout boys who would grow up to be a big bear of a man. “Janet!” he yelled, and ran over to the blond girl.

“Daddy!”

Amy and Rory both speared startled glances at the Doctor.

The burly twelve year old boy gave the twelve year old girl a desperate hug. “Sugar bear, are you all right?” he pulled back to look her over, the doctors and nurses continuing to work around him. “I got a call saying there’d been an accident.”

The girl scoffed, she waved a disgusted hand down her body. “Broke a leg. A damned squirrel ran across the wire and startled me. The connector in one boot jerked free,” she nodded at the metal disk inset beside the spike on her discarded boot. “The other one held, but I didn’t. Snapped like a twig. My leg was broke before I even hit the ground.” She nodded over his shoulder at the Doctor. “It would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t caught me.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the intern said, talking to the father, “We have to take her to set the leg now.” The man’s hand gripped convulsively on his daughter’s. Then let go.

“I’ll see you when they get you settled in your room,” he promised. She nodded and laid back as two male nurses wheeled her gurney down the hall and through a pair of swinging doors.

The boy’s shoulders slumped and he ran a hand over his short, buzz cut hair. He straightened to a military bearing and turned and approached the Doctor. He held out a hand. Amy was surprised to see a military looking tattoo on his forearm.

“Thank you for saving my little girl, mister.”

“Doctor,” the Doctor said absently, shaking the boy’s hand.

“Doctor,” the boy nodded. “Did you folks just get in from the spaceport?”

“You could say that,” the Doctor prevaricated. “We thought we’d take a look around, couldn’t sleep,” he added, to explain their presence in town in the middle of the night.

“Yeah, adapting to local planetary time is always a bitch. Anyway, I’m glad you were there to help my girl. You folk registered in with the hostelry yet? I’d offer you a bed at my house but I don’t think I have anything quite long enough,” he said, eyeing up the trio of six foot tall strangers.

“No, we decided to take a look around before signing in. Can you give us directions?” the Doctor said.

“Better yet, I’ll give you a lift.” He rubbed weary hands over his face. “They’re no doubt gonna have to knock her out to set that leg, it’ll be a while before she wakes up.” He looked worriedly over his shoulder, then straightened up and waved at the strangers to follow him.

It was only when his jacket flared open with the gesture that Amy saw the gun riding on his hip. And the star pinned to his uniform.

*

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

Outside the hospital doors dawn had washed a pearly light over the land. They could see the hospital was a sprawling complex, riddled with car parks and sided by a major highway.

“That's what it was,” Amy said, as she got a good look around for the first time in full light. Everything around her was perfectly normal looking for a human city, except that everything was built on a 3/4 scale.

In the dark it had just made the perspectives look a bit off, as if everything was a little farther away than it should be. In fact, everything was just a bit smaller.

Except the sheriff’s truck. The short sheriff led them up to an SUV not much smaller than the utility truck. He opened the back door and gestured them in and hiked himself up into the front seat. Amy, Rory and the Doctor climbed inside. They actually managed to fit without scrunching down.

“116,” the boy said into a mic in the front seat. He punched something into the computer screen built into the dashboard and started the truck, throwing a glance back at his passengers. The Doctor saw the look and touched a control on the door, abruptly Amy felt herself sucked back against the seat cushions as if she’d been strapped in. The sheriff nodded.

“Janine?” he said into the mic as he reversed the truck out of his parking spot and cruised out of the parking lot.

“Yeah, boss?”

“Were you able to get in touch with my boys?”

“I got hold of Chad, but Elliot didn’t answer his phone. Chad’s on his way, he said he’d stop by Elliot's and roust him out of bed. How’s Janet?”

The boy wheeled the car expertly out into the early morning traffic. “She’s fine. Busted her leg. The doctors are setting it now. I’ve got a trio of grown-ups I’m taking to the Hostel at the spaceport then I’m coming back. Any calls?”

“No, you lucked out, it’s been a slow night. I called Jeff in, he’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks Janine, you’re a peach.”

“And don’t you know it. Give Janet a kiss for me.”

“Will do. 120 Out.” He turned off the mic and relaxed with a sigh. A puzzled noise from Rory, as Rory glared at the Doctor for explanations, drew his attention back to his passengers. “So what are you all on planet for?”

 

Twenty minutes later he dropped them at a normal sized twenty story building at the edge of a high tech spaceport. The Doctor waved him off gaily and led Amy and Rory into the lobby. Everything here was built to their size. He flashed the psychic paper, and a charming grin, at the sweet brunette receptionist (who looked all of ten years old) and they soon found themselves settling into a tourist suite complete with a panoramic view of the spaceport and the city beyond.

“Okay, Doctor. Spill it,” Amy demanded, crossing her arms and giving him a determined look.

“A whole planet of kids?” Rory sputtered incredulously, glaring at the Doctor as if he was pulling some huge hoax.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “Welcome to Feyanora, one of the 700 wonders of the galaxy. Well, this galaxy.”

“That’s not possible,” Rory declared.

“Oh, everything is possible,” the Doctor said, he lounged down on one of the beds, propping his head on one hand. They plopped into chairs, sensing a long story coming on.

“You humans are infinitely adaptable. Feyanora is one of the new planets colonized in the first years after the last starburst.”

“Starburst?” Amy asked.

The Doctor waved that off. “Earth has been evacuated and reclaimed several times in its history. Feyanora is one of the worlds the colonists claimed. Actually, it wasn’t one of the earliest, but it’s one of the farthest out. Anyway, rich world, plenty of water, minerals, good gravity, air, and lots and lots of space to spread out in.” He stretched his arms wide and flopped backward on the bed. For a minute Amy thought he was going to go to sleep.

“Doctor,” she said in a warning tone.

“Right,” the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows. “Feyanora is the only known human world where humans don’t mature past puberty. Actually, they never even enter puberty.“

“That’s not possible,” Rory said. “Where would the children come from?”

“Government run creches,” the Doctor said. “Each Feyanoran has the right to one conception a year from the age of 26 to 56. No discrimination given due to age, income, educational level, disability, or marital status.”

“Married!” Rory yelped. “These kids are married?”

The Doctor rolled his head to look at him. “Sure, just because they don’t mature physically doesn’t mean they don’t mature mentally or emotionally. How old were you the first time you fell in love with a girl?”

Rory ducked his head and peeked at Amy. The Doctor grinned.

“But thirty kids!” Amy protested.

“No, thirty conceptions. Even with technology things go wrong. They get one try a year, and most don’t go for the whole shebang. Kids take a lot of work, most people are happy with two or three. They’re only constitutionally guaranteed the right to try every year. It’s not required.”

“But, kids raising kids, how’s that work?” Rory asked.

“The same as anywhere else. Older siblings help take care of younger siblings on most frontier planets. Most civilized ones too.”

“But, they don’t age, how did that happen?” Rory asked. “Did they find the Fountain of Youth?”

“In a way,” the Doctor said, in a tone that said it hadn’t been a happy discovery.

He sat up. “Have you ever heard of progeria?”

Rory nodded. “The aging disease. Little kids die of old age.”

“The opposite of progeria is anageria,” the Doctor said. “When the first settlers on Feyanora started having kids, everything seemed fine at first, until they realized their children weren’t aging. Something in the biosphere here was affecting them. The first generation of native Feyanorans never aged past two years old. And the oldest of them lived to be fifty.”

Amy stared at him in disbelief. “Oh my god.”

“Exactly,” the Doctor said. “Unfortunately, this was true anageria. The children not only didn’t grow up, they didn’t mature mentally either. They stayed infants. And anageria comes rife with a whole host of medical problems. Underdeveloped lungs, tendency toward infection, organ dysfunction, you name it. Most of them didn’t live past the first few years.”

"Why didn't they just leave?" Amy asked.

"By the time they realized the problem the other colony worlds were at war, and there wasn't another world close enough for them to reach. They had no choice but to stay and find a solution."

"But if something was affecting the babies, wasn’t it affecting the adults too?” Rory asked.

"Yes,” the Doctor said. “They retreated back into the ship. It was a colony ship, it could sustain them for a long time, but not forever. As long as they stayed inside, living off the hydroponic gardens and recycled air they were safe.” He went introspective for a moment, looking out the windows. “All that verdant world out there, all that life beyond their windows, and they could never go outside. It must have driven them mad."

"But they eventually found a solution," Amy said, calling him back to the subject.

"Yes,” he jumped up and started pacing, gesturing with his hands. “It took them 40 years. They narrowed down the causes to local influences that were inhibiting the proper formation of certain hormones. The body could produce a certain amount of them, but never enough, and it only seemed to affect certain hormones, estrogen, testosterone, growth hormones were all inhibited to certain extents. The causes were endemic, they couldn't just reengineer the substances out of the plants and air, the local biosphere were dependent on them.

“They were never able to find a complete cure,” the Doctor said, "but they did find a balance. Their children were able to mature mentally at a normal rate, and have a normal lifespan with most of the health problems fixed, but they would never be able to physically mature. The local contaminants simply wouldn't allow them to produce enough estrogen or testosterone to trigger puberty."

"Then how do they make the babies, without sperm or eggs?" Rory asked, craning his neck to watch the Doctor.

"All the cells of the body contain complete DNA information, you don't actually need gametes to reproduce." the Doctor absently rubbed the back of his hand.

"So they just stay young forever," Amy said, "they never grow old?"

"They never "grow up."" The Doctor said, raising a hand to indicate mature growth. "They never physically mature.”

Rory shook his head. "Then why did he call us "grown-ups?"

"Ah, well, grown-ups has a bit of a different meaning here. It doesn't mean adults, it means non-Feyanorans, the other races of humans, like you two, who actually grow "up."

“But why are we sitting around in here talking about it?” the Doctor demanded, shooing them towards the door. “There’s a whole world out there to explore!”

"Why are you so excited?" Rory asked, not moving. "You already know all about it."

The Doctor waved it away. "Book learning. A synopsis written by a race of fusty old men who watched and took notes. Just because you know the Eiffel Tower is in Paris and was built for the Great Exhibition, does that mean you wouldn't want to go _see_ it?" 

Rory looked at Amy. Amy grinned back. Rory stood up. "Well, let's go!"

 

In the lobby, just before they reached the glass front doors, Rory grabbed the Doctor by the sleeve and stopped him.

“If the atmosphere here inhibits hormones, are Amy and I safe?” Rory asked quietly, not wanting to alarm Amy, who was trotting on ahead of them.

“You’re fine,” the Doctor said. “It takes months of exposure before an adult is adversely affected. That’s one of the reasons they have “grown-ups” register at the hostel.” He waved around at the lobby. “It’s not just so they’ll have beds long enough. It’s also to monitor how long they’ve been on planet for health reasons. We’ll be gone long before it can affect you two.”

“Come on!” Amy yelled, pushing out into the summer sunlight.

*

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

Outside, the Doctor turned away from the spaceport and headed deeper into the city.

"Uhm..." Rory said, craning his neck to look back over his shoulder. "Aren't we going to look in there?" he asked, pointing over his shoulder at the spaceport.

"Oh, you've seen one spaceport, you've seen them all," the Doctor said, flicking his wrists, galumping along in his usual ground eating stride.

"Yeah," Amy said, grabbing his coat tail, and jerking him to a surprised stop, "but _we_ haven't."

The Doctor straightened his bow tie to regain his dignity and shot his cuffs. "Well, all right, but just along the outer walls, mind," he said, shaking a finger at them like an old grandpa. "Everything in a spaceport is regulated. We don't want them asking a lot of questions."

The spaceport was a fantasy in white permacrete. Low, flowing terminal buildings, looking slightly alien, were fronted by the huge flowing control tower, looking like an alien minaret calling all the spaceships to prayer.

A huge expanse of tarmac spread out for a mile in both directions. A white plastercrete wall separated the spaceport from the more normal everyday streets.

The wall was more a safety barricade than a security measure. The wall was only about 6 1/2 feet tall, more than tall enough to block out the 4 1/2 foot tall locals. But Amy and Rory could see over it if they stood back a bit and stood on tiptoe.

It was amazingly quiet.

Amy had always assumed a spaceport would be a hugely noisy place with rockets going off everywhere. But the ships here, largely contoured white craft, with a few huge, army green pickles and one small pink disc, rose up as silently and gracefully as swans.

"It's beautiful!" Amy said, hanging by her fingertips and stretching up on tiptoe, peering over the wall. Rory, in the same pose, beside her, nodded.

The Doctor smiled indulgently, thinking they looked like a couple of kids sneaking a peek at a football game.

"So they're not at war anymore?" Rory asked, turning to look at the Doctor who was waiting patiently for them.

"No. That was centuries ago."

Amy jumped down, having looked her fill. She dusted her hands off. "So they're advanced enough to have a spaceport and artificial creches but the sheriff still drives an SUV?"

The Doctor started sauntering off down the street. "Yes. It's a matter of resources. They still have the technology, but it takes a lot more manpower and raw materials to make a spaceship than it does to make a wheeled vehicle. They can get rubber and metal and silica here, some of the more esoteric elements have to be imported. It makes more financial sense to use their own resources for day-to-day things."

"Like bricks for buildings," Rory said, as they turned a corner and found themselves in a market square bounded on all sides by red, brown, and gray brick buildings.

Jaunty checkered awnings arched over wide display windows, a fountain bubbled in the center of the square, showing a naked 12-year-old boy holding up a Trident, of all things, while various oddly shaped sea creatures spouted water all around them.

Amy turned her face away, and Rory blushed a bit, uncertain why he was so uncomfortable when he'd seen fully grown Poseidon statues plenty of times before.

The square was thronged with morning shoppers, a couple of eight-year-old boys zoomed by on maglev skates, nearly knocking into them, while a shopkeeper standing in a nearby doorway with a broom yelled after them to, "Watch it!"

"You folks all right?" The 12-year-old boy asked as he tucked his broom behind the shop door. He apparently ran a knickknacks shop, going by the collection in his window. He was wearing a long white apron like an old-fashioned butcher and his hands were covered with nicks and scars.

Are these your work?" the Doctor asked, picking up a small wooden carving of what looked like a cute little zebra-striped mouse.

"No, I bought these on consignment from some of the local artists. I only do commissioned work nowadays."

The Doctor absently handed the mouse to Amy.

"I'd love to see some of it," he suggested eagerly, lifting his almost nonexistent eyebrows endearingly at the young artist.

The boy nodded back into the shop. "This way." 

While the Doctor was in the knickknack shop, Amy and Rory looked around outside.

“It’s like an amusement park,“ Rory said. “All these kids playing dress up, pretending to be adults, even the buildings are scaled down, like playhouses, or a set,” he explained.

“Yeah,” she said, looking out across the miniature square. They were standing under the awning, they’d have to duck to get out under the lip. “It makes me feel like a giant,” she said. 

“Well, you are very tall,” he said.

She glared at him and chucked him not quite gently on the nose. “So are you.”

He wiggled his nose and rubbed it.

“Look, mama, grown-ups!” a piping little voice yelled. 

They turned to see three girls walking by on the sidewalk. A curly haired little blond moppet, three years old, stared up at them and pointed.

“Yes, honey. They’re very large aren’t they? It’s not polite to point,” the dusky-blond 12 year old girl beside her said. The tot curled her finger down, as if to prove she hadn’t been pointing, then waved gaily at them. 

Amy waved back.

The two blond girls caught up with the other 12 year old girl who was pushing a stroller with a one year old little boy in it. He wore little blue overalls and a striped shirt and tiny white sneakers. 

“Look, Jeffy,” the three year old said in a loud stage whisper and quickly “didn’t point” at them. “Grown-ups.”

Amy and Rory shared a grin as the boy continued sucking his pacifier but stared at them with wide, intrigued eyes. The children, Amy noticed, were both normal sized children, but compared with the 12 year old “adults” they looked twice the size of normal kids.

Amy looked from the three year old who had gotten distracted and was studying something in the grass to the 12 year olds, they all shared the same blond hair, bright yellow on the toddler and the girl pushing the stroller, more muted on the other girl. 

And that’s when Amy realized. The third girl’s hair wasn’t just a darker blond. It was going gray. 

Amy looked at Rory in consternation. He gave her a confused look, not having noticed what she did. 

Amy leaned backward and shouted into the dark confines of the Art shop, “Doctor!”

His voice came back, bright with excitement. “Amy! You’ve got to come see this!”

Amy grabbed Rory’s hand and dragged him into the dark depths of the shop, ducking her head under the lintel.

She followed the Doctor’s voice to a workroom in the back. It was brightly lit by skylights, and smelled sweetly of sawdust. It was scattered with wood chips, files, planes and other woodworking tools, along with various sized chain saws and half finished wooden sculptures. There was a large walk in freezer in the back wall. 

“Amy, look at this!” The Doctor dragged her over and pointed excitedly to a sculpture on the table. It looked like a pudgy young dragon, curled up into exactly the shape of an egg shell, one eye was opened and staring at her, in a haughty, disgruntled fashion. It was almost comical, as if someone had stolen his shell while he was sleeping and he was still deciding whether to be annoyed, or go back to sleep. 

At first glance it was funny, like a comic strip made in wood, until she started to notice the details. Every scale was individually carved and polished, bringing out the natural iridescence of the green-purple wood grain. The eye was originally a burl, now protruding slightly but with a deep slit pupil, the edges of the burl recast into eyelids. The detail was so perfect she wouldn’t have been surprised to see it start breathing. 

The Doctor was wringing his hands in excitement. “Isn’t it fantastic?” he said. “It’s a perfect replica of a Darsheen dragon, it’s even the right size, and they’ve been extinct for centuries. There aren’t even any pictures of them!”

He so obviously wanted her to share his excitement that she patted his wringing hands. “It’s beautiful.”

Rory drew a finger down the line of the dragon’s spine, not quite daring to touch the wood. “That is amazing,” he said with heartfelt sincerity, his nurse’s eye picking out the faithful reproduction of muscles and form. 

“Thank you,” the boy said, turning around from something he’d been fiddling with at the far workbench. 

That’s when Amy saw what she’d missed before in the shade of the awning. Lines, tiny thread thin lines in his forehead and around his eyes and mouth. 

“Mr. Wilkerson is a cultural artist, paid by the state to keep the old art styles alive,” the Doctor said. “And he also,” he pointed delightedly at the semicircle of ice chips surrounding the mouth of the freezer, “carves ice sculptures for special occasions. He just finished a mermaid centerpiece for a wedding this afternoon. He’s agreed to let me help carve the fish pillars for the end tables,” he said excitedly, pointing to the chain saws hanging in a rack by the freezer door. 

“Oh, no.” Amy said in denial. She grabbed the Doctor’s arm and started dragging him away against his protests. “Thank you, Mr. Wilkerson,” she said to the boy who was wiping his hands on a shop towel. “But you really don't want to let him loose with a chain saw. God knows what could happen.” Rory nodded and turned faintly green. 

“But, Amy,” the Doctor protested. “I’ve always wanted to make an ice sculpture,” he almost whined. Mr. Wilkerson wisely just watched them go. 

Amy dragged the Doctor back out onto the sidewalk and stood him straight. 

“You said they didn’t get old!” she hissed in a whisper. She flung a hand back toward the workshop. “He has wrinkles. There was a lady out her a while ago with gray hair!”

The Doctor rubbed his arm where she’d grabbed him. “I said they never “grew up,” I never said they didn't get old. Everything wears out eventually.”

“So the cure for their anageria was progeria?” Rory asked aggressively.

“No! They have a healthy, human lifespan. They live about 100 years, but living leaves its mark, and humans aren’t designed to live forever. Not even Feyanorans.”

—————

“Oh, this is surreal,” Amy said as she leaned back on the too-small bench and watched the construction site across the road. “I didn’t know kids could _build_ a skyscraper,” she said with disbelief.

“First of all,” the Doctor said, leaning forward beside her, “They’re not kids. Second of all, kids are proportionately stronger than adults anyway.“

“I just think she’s annoyed because it’s the first time she’s walked by a construction site and not gotten whistled at,” Rory said. 

Amy punched him in the shoulder and knocked him off the arm of the bench. 

But he had a point. Half the small adults in the hardhats across from them were girls.

“Why so many women?” Amy asked as Rory righted himself and sat back down on the bench arm. “Isn’t that sort of unusual for construction work?”

The girls across the street were running claw cranes, carrying timber, and swarming up the metal infrastructure just as agilely as the boys. 

“At twelve years old there’s not a lot of difference in body mass and strength between girls and boys. With the responsibility for reproduction removed from the females the society just naturally became more egalitarian,” the Doctor said.

“What?” Rory asked, “Girls no longer have cooties?”

He dodged when Amy tried to hit him again. 

A police car pulled around the corner and rolled to a stop beside them. It was the sheriff's SUV. The burly blond sheriff jumped out and waved at them.

“Hello, I'm glad to find you again,” he called trotting up to them.

“How _did_ you find us again?” Amy asked, standing up.

He shrugged. “You're grown-ups, you don't exactly blend in.”

Rory nodded ruefully at that.

“I'm sorry about this,” the sheriff said, turning to the Doctor, who'd also stood up. “Janet's got a bit of a problem,” her father said. “She tends to take things when she's stressed. She didn't mean anything by it. She didn't even realize she'd taken it until we found it in her effects at the hospital.”

He held out the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor goggled, then hastily patted down his pockets. He opened his jacket and stared accusingly at his inside pocket, as if it had failed him somehow. “Thank you,” he said, taking the screwdriver from the sheriff. He suddenly grinned. “I'm impressed!”

“What, because she picked your pocket?” Amy said, rolling her eyes, she knew how easy that was.

“No, because she picked my pocket while wearing heavy lineman's gloves!” the Doctor said enthusiastically.

"What a minute," Amy said, turning back to the boy. "Let me get this straight. You're a sheriff, and your daughter's a kleptomaniac?" she asked incredulously, a smirk peeking through. 

He scratched his forehead, "Yeah, I never said it made sense." 

Rory giggled. The sheriff's car radio beeped. He went back to his cruiser to answer it.

“Sheriff?” the dispatcher asked uneasily.

“Yeah, Janine.”

“Jeff told me to call you. We've got a missing person's report.” she said uneasily.

He was immediately all business, he pulled up the display on the dashboard computer. “Give me the description.”

“That's just it, boss. It's not one person.”

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory could hear the conversation clearly through the open window.

“Well?” the sheriff asked.

“It's the Kitterang Farm,” she said. "The regular hauler went out to pick up their load, but said they found the place deserted." Her voice quavered. ”More than 300 men, women, and children.

Gone.”

*

* * *

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	4. Chapter 4

"Janine, get the ATV ready, I'll be there in 15 minutes," the sheriff said into the microphone. He started the car. The Doctor laid a hand on the window.

"I'd like to come along," the Doctor said.

"No offense, Doctor, but this isn't work for civilians," the sheriff said.

"I'm a Special Investigator for the Unified Intelligence Taskforce," Doctor said. He took out the psychic paper and flashed it at the sheriff. "We specialize in odd happenings like this. My experience might be of use to you," the Doctor said.

The sheriff took the wallet, read it, then leaned back and typed something into his dashboard computer. He consulted the psychic paper and typed in a few more numbers, apparently reading it off the blank paper.

Amy poked the Doctor in the ribs, he straightened up with a jerk. "He's going to find out that's a fake," she whispered fiercely. Rory looked worriedly back and forth between the Doctor and the sheriff. 

The boy handed the wallet back to the Doctor. "According to the interplanetary database,” he said, “you, and any associates you may have, have full clearance and a ‘Render All Aid’ tag attached." 

Rory and Amy gave him double takes. The Doctor smirked.

“What is your name, anyway?” the sheriff asked. He waved at the computer. “I never asked, and the records don’t say.”

“I’m afraid that’s ‘need to know,’ sheriff, just call me the Doctor, and this is Amy and Rory. And you are?” 

“Dutch Anderson, Land County Sheriff,” he shook the Doctor’s hand and nodded at them, then stared hard at the Doctor. "If you knew something was going on, why didn't you notify the local authorities when you arrived?" he demanded.

The Doctor shrugged and pocketed his psychic paper. "I'm just here on vacation. I wasn't expecting trouble."

"That alone should have warned us," Rory muttered.

The Doctor chose not to hear it.

"Well,” the sheriff said. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Get in. God willing, this is all some mixup and we won't need your help," he said, putting the SUV in gear.

They piled into the back of the land rover. As Dutch pulled out, sirens wailing, Rory leaned over and whispered. "Since when are you a member of UNIT?"

———

The ATV (Aerial Transport Vehicle) turned out to be the counterpart to the sheriff's SUV. Not big enough to be called a plane, but not small enough to be anything else.

Two pilots chairs in the front opened up to a wide aisle down the center of the craft, with narrow benches along each wall under large windows. It was designed for carrying equipment, emergency personnel, prisoners, or evacuees from disasters. There was plenty of room for the Doctor, Rory and Amy, but it still felt like flying in a jeep.

The Doctor crouched his way back into the open area behind the driver's seats, ducking down to avoid the low ceiling. The countryside flowed around them outside the large windows, endless plains covered in bison.

"I'm surprised you’re not up there telling him how to fly this thing," Rory said.

The Doctor sat down on the bench, he pointed toward the child sized pilots seats. "The seats are too small," he said.

Amy leaned forward, elbows propped on her knees. "So, 300 people on one farm?" she asked. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

"These aren't the family farms you’re probably thinking of, Amy," the Doctor said. "Despite being settled for centuries, Feyanora’s still a sparsely populated planet. In order to bring in extra money for the local economy, Feyanora has become one of the breadbasket planets. They grow food for the other inhabited planets in the area. Farms here cover thousands of acres and are worked using huge harvesting machines that would make your 21st century combines look like push toys,” the Doctor said.

"Wait a minute," Rory said. "You said that Fayanoran plants were poisonous to humans." 

The Doctor looked at him, "Who said their customers were human?" he pointed out. “There are other races that aren’t bothered by the inhibiting chemicals. They need food too."

It only took about 20 minutes to reach the Kitterang Farm, nearly 200 miles south of the city. The ATV settled gently to the tarmac of the farm landing area. The door opened with a hydraulic hiss and Dutch dodged his way past them to the open door. He stopped and turned to them. 

“If you intend to investigate, please don’t touch anything,” he said, holding up an admonishing finger, looking at each of them. “We may need to call in forensics, we don’t want any evidence ruined.” 

The Doctor nodded. Amy and Rory followed suit. 

The sheriff nodded, satisfied and jumped down to the tarmac. “Jeff!” he waved as another boy trotted up to him. 

Jeff was a thoroughly ordinary looking boy with straight brown hair wearing the tan uniform of the sheriff’s office and a deputy badge on his shirt pocket. He was also wearing a holster slung on one hip. The heaviness of that gun and the weight of his expression belied any thought that this was just a boy playing “policeman.”

“Sheriff,” he nodded a hello at Dutch and looked past him at the grown-ups. 

“This is the Doctor, a Special Investigator who has offered his help, these are his assistants, Rory and Amy,” Dutch introduced quickly. Jeff nodded at them. “What have you found out so far?”

“Like I told you on the radio, the regular hauler came out and found the place deserted. We’ve been looking but we haven’t found anyone. The local tracking station isn’t picking up any of the tracers and my portable kit isn’t finding anything within its search radius. There’s no indication of theft. All the vehicles that weren’t out on duty are still here. But we’re not getting any response from any of the harvesters in the field either.”

“Any signs of violence?” Dutch asked.

Jeff shook his head. “There’s some disorder, a chair tipped over, little things, but no signs of blood or a struggle. It’s like they all just up and vanished.”

Amy and Rory paid attention to the conversation as the Doctor half listened, swinging around on his heel to scan the area. They were parked on a huge expanse of tarmac that must have covered several acres. There was a short flight control tower at the corner of the asphalt, and a variety of small cars and trucks parked neatly at the curb. The only other vehicles were two large aerial transports that looked like they were for hauling feed or produce, and one truly huge cargo transport the size and shape of a wheat silo lying on its side that dwarfed all the other vehicles. It was pink. 

Beyond the tarmac stretched endless wheat fields all around the complex. A quiet, sweet smelling breeze flowed over them, emphasizing the deserted silence.

A white-pillared antebellum mansion, with half a dozen smaller houses, stood on the south side of the tarmac, with forest behind it. A double row of gigantic silos lined the east side of the tarmac, the silos all connected by a vast web of machinery, delivery pipes, scaffolding and ductwork.

“It looks like half airport, half industrial complex, and half Old South Plantation,” the Doctor said, swinging back around on his heel. 

“That’s three halves,” Rory said. 

“Exactly.” The Doctor grinned, then turned and interrupted the sheriff and deputy. “Lets get started. Perhaps you’d better introduce me to these haulers.”

The haulers were Tripods. Little pink aliens two feet tall composed of dusky pink skin, a smooth ball shaped body about 8 inches across and three featureless, stiltlike “legs.” They looked like a piece of extremely simple CGI.

In fact, Rory would have thought he was hallucinating, if one of the aliens hadn’t extended one “leg” in a handshake. “I’m Captain Schwillic, pleased to meet you.”

“R-Rory Williams,” he stuttered back. The creature’s skin was cool, but warm enough to be endothermic, and Rory could feel the faint bulges of cartilaginous “bones” inside, like a chain of ball joints. It gave the legs almost the flexibility of a tentacle, but with what felt like knuckles under the skin. Close up, the skin wasn’t even the flat fake pink he’s assumed, but had the lightly mottled, look of real skin, showing the faint tracery of tiny veins, like a close up of a person’s cheek.

They had no eyes, or any discernible features. And they spoke by vibrating their skin. 

Rory felt a bit of culture shock, seeing something so completely alien in a human setting. Amy was grinning, delighted. And the Doctor was interviewing them as casually as he talked to any other person. 

“Aren’t they cute?” Amy said, bouncing up to him and squeezing his arm. She looked back at the three Tripods which were apparently all the crew there was of the huge pink cargo carrier that towered over the tarmac. 

“Cute. Yeah.” 

The Doctor rejoined them as Sheriff Anderson, Jeff and the aliens left to continue their search grid. The aliens had agreed to stay and help. 

“Captain Schwillic said they arrived on schedule for their normal pickup, but weren’t getting any answer from the tower. They didn’t think anything of it, just assumed somebody was on a coffee break. They landed anyway and Schwillic and Toftoc, his first officer, went up to the main offices in the house expecting to find someone there. All they found was some knocked over furniture, but no humans. 

Their third officer had gone to the silos to arrange loading and found much the same situation. They tried calling out on the house’s broadband, assuming there’s been some disaster on the farm elsewhere that everyone was dealing with. When they got no answer they called the sheriff’s office in Landing.”

“So what do we do?” Rory asked.

“We look around, see what we can find,” the Doctor said. He suddenly gave the both of them a gimlet look. He turned and yelled over his shoulder, “Oi! Dutch!” 

The young sheriff broke off his conversation with his deputy and trotted back over. “Did you think of something, Doctor?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes. You said that everyone outside the cities wears trackers, “ the Doctor observed.

“Yes. It’s too easy for people to get lost on a frontier world otherwise. But we aren’t picking up any of their traces.”

“No, I know that,” the Doctor waved that away. “Do you have any more of the trackers anywhere?”

“Sure, they’re standard issue with all emergency field kits.” Obviously wondering what the Doctor was getting at, the sheriff led them back to his ATV, leaned in, and popped out an emergency medical kit that was latched onto the wall just inside the doorway. He handed it to the Doctor. 

“Excellent!” The Doctor opened the kit, rummaged around and pulled out a small vial of tiny silver disks. “This them?”

“Yes,” the sheriff nodded. “Do you think you’ve found a way to track them?”

“No,” the Doctor said, pulling out a pneumatic injection gun. “But I’ve found it’s a good idea to keep track of my assistants when on a new planet, “ the Doctor said.

Amy stuck her tongue out at him. 

She gave the Doctor her arm with a long-suffering look. With a “shunk” of the hypospray injector she felt a sting like a mosquito bite, and an itchy red welt showed where the tracker was now imbedded under her skin.

The Doctor did the same to Rory. He returned the equipment to the medical case and flicked out the sonic screwdriver. He waved it over their arms, calibrated something on the side, then held the screwdriver up in the air, turning in a slow circle, obviously scanning for something.

He pulled it down and looked at it. 

“Did you find anything?” Rory asked impatiently. The sheriff just looked hopeful. The Doctor grimaced. “No, just you two. Still, at least now I don’t have to worry about losing you out here. I’ve grown inexplicably fond of you.” He grinned. 

“What’s the range on that?” the sheriff said, nodding at the sonic screwdriver. 

The Doctor became more serious. “Suffice it to say, if they’d been within a couple of hundred miles, this would have found them.” He picked up the vial of trackers and shook it. “I assume these work on all the normal frequencies?”

The sheriff nodded and rattled off a spate of technicalities that neither Amy or Rory understood. The Doctor nodded. 

“If they are still in the area they’re either shielded, or inactivated.”

“Once the trackers are activated they can’t be deactivated except by destroying them. They’ll still signal even if the owner is dead, so we can find the bodies,” the sheriff said.

The Doctor sighed, and looked around, “Then we need more information. Rory, you come with me. Amy, you go with the sheriff. Look for anything unusual, anything that doesn’t seem to fit.” He nodded and stalked off toward the mansion. Rory looked back and forth between him and Amy for a confused moment then trotted after the Doctor.

*

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

I wasn’t as far to the plantation house as Rory expected. It was the perspective illusion kicking in again, he realized. As he followed the Doctor up the shallow front stairs he had that odd feeling of being a giant again. The house was probably palatial by the standards of the child-sized Feyanorans, but he and the Doctor had to duck to enter the front door.

The entranceway was a large hall with a grand staircase. Meeting rooms, offices, and what looked like a conference room led off of the foyer, an open gallery above led off to different rooms and hallways.

One of the tripods joined them. “We’ve already searched the house, all the doors were open, but we found no one.” His skin vibrated as he spoke. “I’m going to try the dispatch room again. Perhaps someone is still out in the far fields.”

The Doctor nodded. “A good idea.”

They watched as the tripod spun off across the grand entrance hall. Rory had noticed that they tended to twirl when they walked, swinging around one foot after the other. It was amazing they didn’t get dizzy. It was sort of strange to watch the tripod whirling up the stairs.

The Doctor poked his nose into each of the downstairs rooms, but quickly made his way to the back of the house, past the large stairway, into the service areas of the house.

If the front was for business, then this was where the farmers lived. A back staircase led down to the ground floor kitchen. There they found the first evidence of disorder.

One of the kitchen chairs had been knocked over. The kitchen table was askew. A baby’s high chair sat at the head of the table. There was no baby.

Rory swallowed at the realization that it wasn’t just employees that had gone missing, but entire families. “What happened here, Doctor?” he asked helplessly.

“I don’t know, Rory. I’d say the place was attacked, but there’s no signs of a fight.”

“Well, someone threw something,” Rory said, pointing at a bowl of porridge that had splattered against the wall, leaving a globy trail of oatmeal sliding down to the floor.

“Not thrown,” the Doctor corrected absently, “flipped.”

“Huh?”

The Doctor pointed at the high-chair tray lying against the wall at an angle near the bowl. “Something knocked the tray over.”

“Maybe they threw the tray too,” Rory suggested. “A mother protecting her child.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Something knocked over the tray, flipping it toward the wall.”

“How can you tell that?” Rory said.

“The trajectory.” His long finger traced a line from the high chair to the wall. “And look here,” he pointed at the ceiling six inches above their heads.

Rory craned his neck to look. “Why would there be scuff marks on the ceiling?”

“I don’t know, but it’s interesting.” He gazed around the kitchen, his eyes missing nothing. Rory could practically hear his brain working. He held his breath. “Let’s check the rest of the rooms,” the Doctor finally said.

They toured the entire house but found nothing more. As the tripod had said, all the doors were open. They looked in each of the rooms, Rory was surprised to see that the Doctor kept his hands in his pockets, not touching anything, as the sheriff had requested. They found evidence of people in the middle of different tasks, and more of the strange scuff marks, but no farmers.

Eventually they worked their way outside. They stood at the back of the mansion, Rory breathed in great gulps of fresh air, there was something oppressive about being in the abandoned house, even though the air inside had been just as fresh, with the windows open to the spring breeze.

Rory narrowed his eyes. “Is that a corral?”

—————

Amy followed the deputy into the shadow of the industrial complex.

The silos were vast. Covered gantries formed huge roofed control rooms between the silos where trucks and transports could pull in and be loaded out of the weather.

Metal walkways ringed each of the booster rocket sized silos, control panels plugged in beside each inspection hatch allowing the farmers to monitor the contents.

The air smelled of concrete, engine oil, and wheat chaff. Their footsteps echoed oddly off of the curved cliff walls of the silos all around them.

“How many people does it take to run a place like this?” Amy asked the deputy.

He turned his deceptively little-boy face up to her. “Depending on the season, anywhere from six to a couple of dozen. According to the work clock, there were eight people on duty when the hauler arrived.” He nodded to a digital clock set by the massive outer door. Even in this day and age it was easily recognizable as a punch in timeclock, with the requisite coats and boots and and outer gear clustered on the wall beside it.

The main floor was clear, showing no more evidence of use than old oil patches from equipment.

They climbed the gantry of the nearest tower. The first three silos were shut down, registering full. The next one was still running, apparently still trying to siphon grain out of a now empty farm transport sitting below. Jeff flicked off the siphon and the courtyard fell silent, except for a low level hum.

“Oh, good god!” Jeff said. He ran down the stairs and to the large vehicle. It was still running. The door stood open.

Jeff jumped in and shut it down. It settled to the pavement off of its impeller drive.

Amy watched from above, unnerved. Who would leave a vehicle that size running? And why? What had happened here?

She turned back to look at the controls behind her. To see if she could find some clue.

And saw it. A child’s shoe. Lying on its side. As if it’s owner had been snatched out of it.

—————

"You mean they actually have horses?" Rory asked, surprised as they approached the corral fence, the stables were beyond, backed by the forest. "I thought that was just an expression."

"Horses are very useful, vital on a new world," Doctor said. "There are places a skimmer just can't go. And a horse is alive, it has instincts and free will. It can warn its rider of danger, or find its own way home of its rider is hurt." The Doctor followed Rory to the corral and leaned against the metal railing. "Many a frontiersman has owed his life to a good horse."

"There’s none here now," Rory commented, looking around the deserted corral. Although there were fresh piles indicating that there had been, not long ago.

"Hmm..." The Doctor stared at the ground inside the paddock. He suddenly frowned and ducked between the rails into the corral. He walked around in an intense crouch, studying the dirt.

"Doctor," Rory protested. "You're going to get your boots filthy!"

The Doctor waved him off and brushed his fingers along above the dry ground as if measuring something. He looked up, across the corral, staring at the dirt, checking something. His eyes were drawn to a half-squashed horse pat.

“What is it?” Rory asked, knowing that look.

“What do you see here, Rory?” the Doctor asked, waving toward the enclosure.

Rory shrugged. “A deserted field. Do you suppose it was rustlers?” he asked, suddenly excited to have a theory. “You said horses were valuable here.”

The Doctor shook his head, “No tracks, no indication the horses were herded anywhere. Look closer. What do you see right here?” He pointed down at a wide indentation in the dirt.

Rory shrugged and shook his head. “Uneven ground. A depression in the dirt. Does it mean anything?”

“These horses were lying down,” the Doctor said. “You can see it here, and there, and there,” he pointed to more wide indentations, including one by the squashed horse pat.

Now that he’d pointed it out, Rory could see it, wide shallow depressions scattered all across the paddock. “So?”

The Doctor looked up at him, “Horses don’t lie down. They even sleep standing up. They only lie down if they’re deathly ill.”

“So,” Rory drawled, working it out in his own mind, “something happened to the horses? An epidemic? They all got sick and had to be moved?”

The Doctor shook his head. “There’s no indication that they were moved. No tracks, no drag marks, they just all laid down.”

“I’m still not getting it,” Rory said in frustration.

“Rory, if all these horses lay down sick. Where are they?”

—————

The Doctor urged Rory into the corral and they carefully quartered the whole field. They didn’t find anything else. Even inspecting the stables turned up nothing new, just more interrupted work when the farmers disappeared.

Rory stood at the opening of the stables and scowled at the bare paddock. He reached up to run a hand through his hair and stopped when his sleeve caught on a splinter on the stable doorframe. He worked it free, then ran his fingers over the spot, another of the odd scuffmarks.

Suddenly his eyes snapped back to the paddock. They locked on one of the depressions. His eyes widened and he ran over and knelt down, checking that he saw what he thought he saw. He jumped up and checked another of the depressions, then another on the far edge of the paddock to make sure.

“Doctor!” he yelled. He heard a metal bucket crashing as he apparently startled the Doctor. The Time Lord rushed to the stable opening. His eyebrows up in eagerness.

“Look at this,” Rory pointed down at the depression at his feet. He knelt and traced his fingers over a set of scratches in the dirt, right on the edge of the depression. The Doctor knelt down and looked. “They’ve all got them. Identical. Like the scuff marks in the house,” Rory said.

The Doctor stood up, and looked leerily around the stableyard. “Rory, go and find Amy. Meet me at the corner of the airfield.”

“What...?” Rory cut off his desire for an explanation. “Where will you be?”

“I need to think.” The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, looking worried. He saw Rory still standing there, he gave him a shove, “Go!”

—————

“Did you find anything?” Rory asked eagerly, meeting Amy as she walked back toward the house.

“Just a kid’s shoe.” Amy rubbed her arms. “This is so creepy. It’s like they all just vanished. We even had to turn off some equipment because it had been left running,” she waved behind her at the silos.

“Any signs of violence?” Rory asked.

She shook her head. “That would have made it seem more normal somehow. If they were attacked there’d be signs, survivors, wouldn’t there?” she asked with an unusual need for reassurance. He took her hand. She gripped tight. “But it’s like they just walked away from what they were doing.”

She looked at him. “Do you think they were possessed?”

Not long ago that would have sounded ridiculous, but they’d seen too much of the Doctor’s world, now. It was all too possible.

“What did you find?” Amy asked, getting hold of herself, her normal indomitable spirit reasserting itself. She dropped his hand and wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her arms.

Rory didn’t take it as a rejection, she’d always been like that, searing brilliance and the bravery of dragons most of the time, but with occasional moments of vulnerability where she’d cling to him. He’d put up with a lot for those moments.

“Same thing,” he answered. “The place is just abandoned, like they walked off. There was something weird with the horses though, the Doctor wouldn’t tell me what. Come on. He sent me to find you.” He took her hand and pulled her back to the airfield.

—————

The Doctor wandered off into the edge of the wheat field, thinking furiously. He stopped, hip high in waving golden wheat. He took a deep breath of the sweet spring air, trying to clear his mind. He calmed his thoughts, this should all make sense, there was a pattern here that he knew he wasn’t seeing.

He trolled his hands through the heavy heads of grain, enjoying the light pattering of it on his skin. He pinched off one of the heads and rubbed it between his fingers. He brought it to his nose.

—————

“So where is he?” Amy asked.

“I don’t know. He said to bring you back here.” They were standing on the corner of the tarmac between the plantation house and the silos.

“Doctor!” Rory yelled, hands cupped around his mouth.

Jeff popped his head out of the one of the silos at the shout, and one of the tripods suddenly stood up in the wheat fields, and “looked” toward them.

No Doctor.

“Doctor!” Amy yelled in her best “you better answer me” voice.

Dutch appeared in the doorway of the flight control tower. They all listened and looked around. A breeze soughed through the wheat field. A distant bird cried.

No Doctor.

Dutch jogged up to them. Jeff and the tripods converged on the spot.

The sheriff was consulting a handheld device. “I’m not picking up his tracker,” he said as they all converged on Rory and Amy.

Rory hit himself in the head. “He doesn’t have one!”

“Typical,” Amy groused. “He makes us get tracers, then he gets lost.”

Dutch was looking dire. “Where was the last place you saw him?”

“At the corral.” Rory pointed beyond the house. “But he said to meet him here. Don’t worry. He’s always doing this, wandering off.”

“Maybe so,” Dutch said. “But I’ve got a whole settlement that’s disappeared. And now one of my search team has gone missing.” He loosened his pistol in its holster and carefully eyed the surrounding terrain for any sign of a grown-up. No sign.

“Form a line,” he told them all. “Keep in visual contact at all times. We’re going to do a sweep.”

—————

They found the Doctor lying unconscious in the wheat field.

*

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	6. Chapter 6

"Over here!" Rory yelled, he waved to the others.

The Doctor was lying half twisted in the wheat about 20 feet from the edge of the field.

Rory looked around quickly, but there wasn't any other depressions in the field. Unbroken wheat stalks rose tall all around the Doctor in a perfect outline. If Rory hadn't noticed the strange bald spot in the field he'd never have found him.

The Doctor looked defenselessly young lying there. Rory knelt down to examine him, careful not to touch.

"Doctor!" Amy yelled. She charged into the field and dropped down beside the Time Lord. She looked up at Rory. "What happened?"

"I don't know, I found him like this."

Dutch walked up, pushing through the chest-high wheat, waving his scanner. "He's not registering as human," he observed.

"That's because he's not," Rory said. "Amy, help me turn him over."

They carefully rolled the Doctor over, crushing more wheat in the process, releasing a sweet husky scent. The ground was cool, humid and springy under their knees. The sky was clear blue, the wind was sweet, the birdsong pleasant.

Yet Amy felt her heart knocking against her ribs. The Doctor's hair was silky under her hand, but he was as heavy and flaccid as a sack of sand.

"He seems to be breathing," Rory said. He laid his ear to the Doctor's chest. "Both hearts are beating."

"Was he shot?" Jeff asked. He and Dutch had formed a perimeter around them, both facing outward, weapons up, scanning the fields, looking for assailants. The tripods were standing quietly among the stalks, looking anxious to help.

"I don't think so." Rory gave the Doctor a quick once over. "I don't see any blood."

"Doctor," Amy said urgently, "Doctor, wake up!" she gave him a little shake.

Rory caught her arm. "Don't, Amy, we don't know how he's hurt." He ran his hands over skull, arms, back, and legs. "No broken bones, no bumps, no bruises, no bites or scratches that I can see."

He checked the Doctor's eyes. It was odd seeing that mobile face so still. Rory even smelled his breath. He sat back on his heels. He shook his head. "I'm not getting anything."

"So, what, he just passed out from hay fever?" Amy said sarcastically.

"How should I know?" Rory demanded. "Who knows what kind of hay fever he gets!" He suddenly stopped with a horrified look on his face. "Horses," he said dreadfully. He stared around at the wheat field.

"What?" Amy asked, she was patting the Doctor's face, trying to rouse him.

"Before he sent me to find you we were investigating the stables, there was something wrong with the horses, for some reason they'd all laid down. I found some more of those scratches, like in the house. When I showed the Doctor he got nervous, started looking around like he expected to find someone watching us. He actually _shoved_ me to go find you." He looked nervously around the wheat field.

"You think he was attacked?" Dutch asked.

"I don't know," Rory said. "But the Doctor doesn't get nervous easily. Who knows what could be hiding in these fields?" he waved at the endless sea of wheat.

"That's it," Amy declared. "I don't like this place. We're getting him back to the ATV."

"Right," Dutch holstered his sidearm. "Jeff, keep an eye out. Toftoc," he addressed one of the tripods. "Go get us a sheet from the house. I doubt the ATV's stretcher is long enough for him. Then, I think it's time we call in some reinforcements."

With all of them helping (the Doctor was heavy for such a skinny guy) they got him transferred onto the sheet. Each of the humans took a corner, and two of the tripods slowly crabwalked underneath the sling, supporting his back in case anyone lost their grip.

Very slowly, keeping an eye out all the time, they carried the Doctor back to the ATV.

—————

"Doctor."

The Doctor felt something wet slide across his face. He grumbled irritably at being awakened and rolled over on his side, pouting in his sleep. Amy grinned. For such an annoying man he could be unexpectedly cute.

"Come on, Doctor." Rory insisted, putting aside the grain-dusty towel he'd been washing the Doctor's face with. "Wake up!"

"Don't wanto," Doctor grumbled back.

"Doctor," Amy said sternly.

With an aggrieved sigh he opened his eyes, instantly completely awake in that way he had. He stared at Amy disgustedly for a minute then his eyes flickered beyond her, taking in the interior of the ATV.

"How did I get here?" he asked.

"You passed out," Rory said.

"Nonsense!" the Doctor said, sitting up abruptly. "I never pass out." His eyes whirled with the sudden movement and he wavered. Putting a hand to his head, he looked up at Rory in surprise. "I must've passed out."

Rory rolled his eyes. He gripped the Doctor's wrist and timed it by the Doctor's own watch. "I'm making your pulse out at 120 per minute, is that right for you?"

The Doctor stared down blearily at his hand. "Pretty much, yeah. What happened?"

"You tell us," Rory said.

"The last thing I remember, I was in the wheat field. I picked a head of wheat and smelled it..." The Doctor abruptly jumped to his feet, ducking at the last minute to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling. He looked down at himself and quickly shrugged out of his jacket, he turned it inside out, and shoved it at Rory. Then he jumped out of the ATV, strode across to the farmyard compound, turned on the outside pump, and doused himself, fully clothed, head to toe in water.

Amy stared, "What's he doing?"

Rory shrugged.

The Doctor came sloshing back, bowtie drooping, looking like a drowned hound dog. Rory held out his jacket.

"Keep it. Keep it folded up. I'll need to analyze it later."

Amy suddenly crossed her arms, "Hormones. You're susceptible to the Feyanoran plants," she accused. Glaring.

"No," the Doctor said, "I'm not. That's the weird thing. Feyanoran hormonal inhibitors don't affect Time Lords."

Amy and Rory shared an uncomfortable look.

—————

The sheriff was on his cellphone outside the ship pacing, one hand over his ear, as he arranged for reinforcements.

"Janine? We need a search team out here. I'm sending back Jeff, the Doctor, and his lot to pick them up. We'll need a scanner crew, search personnel, medical team, and forensics. See if you can peel Clarke away from the city police, he's the best in forensics and I can trust him to handle the publicity when this gets out. What? No, no public statement yet, we still don't know what we're dealing with." He saw the Doctor walking up, he'd seen his exhibition earlier. "But I want you to make sure the Doctor sees a medic before you let him come back. Okay? Good." Dutch flipped shut his cell and looked up at the Time Lord.

"Glad to see you up and about, Doctor," he said.

"So I hear," the Doctor grinned back. "Your doctors won't know what to make of me, but I always travel with diagnostic equipment. If your deputy can give me a lift back to our transport I can check myself out there."

"Good enough," the sheriff nodded. "Any idea what we're up against here?"

The Doctor ran his hand through his wet hair. He sighed. "Not yet. I'll know more when we get back."

—————

The Doctor came out of the TARDIS, in the alleyway where they had landed, and locked the door behind him. He was clean, dry, and wearing his spare suit. Rory and Amy were standing outside waiting for him.

"So, why did the wheat affect you and not us?" Rory asked.

"Different species have different tolerances," the Doctor said. He opened his hand to reveal two curved half disks about an inch in diameter. They were transparent but swirled with an energy like oil on water, they looked more like force fields than contact lenses.

The Doctor pulled his lower eyelid down and slid one of the contacts into place, grunting a little at the contact. Unexpectedly gracefully (he didn't drop either one) he slid the other shield in. He blinked his eyes and stared at them.

"That is _so_ creepy," Amy said. His eyes swirled and sparkled, unnaturally bright and electric. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes and the shields seated properly and became transparent, invisible. His blue-green eyes stared back at her, watering slightly.

"Better?" he asked.

"Much," she agreed.

He dipped a hand in the other pocket and pulled out two white Styrofoam bullets the size of the end of his pinky. He shoved them ruthlessly up his nose. One in each nostril.

"Eww!!" Rory said, shaking his head at the Doctor's brutal efficiency.

The Doctor wiggled his nose and stretched his face. "I always hate this part," he said, sounding like his nose was stopped up.

He put a finger to each side of his nose and snorted out, like an old man blowing a booger, but the nose plugs stayed in.

He took a deep breath. "Ah, that's better. Now, what were you saying, Rory?"

Rory grimaced at him. "Why is all this necessary? What was it? Why did that stuff affect you and not us? You said the hormones stuff here affected humans."

"No, it wasn't the wheat. It was something on the wheat. Some sort of herbicide or fertilizer I expect. Different lifeforms have different tolerances. Time lords are sensitive to certain substances in the Praxis range. They don't normally affect humans. Still, if there is a lot of it about..." He pulled a stick of celery out of his pocket and slapped it on his lapel, like a boutineer.

"You're not wearing that?" Amy said in disbelief.

"Always be prepared!" the Doctor said, wagging a finger in the air. He strode off down the alleyway.

"How is celery, being prepared?!" Amy demanded, following.

—————

"Why do we need a scanner technician?" Rory asked, back at the airfield as they watched the ATV being loaded. "The Doctor already scanned for tracers."

Jeff was checking off equipment and personel as they arrived. The Doctor and Amy were off trying to convince Janine that the sheriff really had said the Doctor didn't need to see a medic after all.

"No offense," Jeff said, "But with a case like this we're going to have to go by the book. We have no way of knowing how sensitive or reliable your Doctor's equipment is. So we need to use our own. That's the most sophisticated tracking system on the planet, if we can't find them with that, it won't be for lack of trying."

Rory nodded and watched as the teamsters loaded the equipment into the ATV.

—————

They returned to the farm with a full load, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory were crammed on the benches with two dozen kids of all sizes and colors. The Doctor, of course, thought this was absolutely marvelous, and proceeded to get the names and life histories of everyone on board.

One of the searchers was a skinny, red-headed boy with freckles and attitude.

He introduced himself as Stanley, apparently he was the tracking technician, some kind of whiz kid.

Back at the farm, as the Doctor, Rory, and the sheriff briefed the searchers on what they'd found and what to look for, Amy watched in fascination as Stanley set up his tracking equipment at the corner of the farm airfield.

Stanley himself was more than a little interesting. There was something strange about him. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, but he was different to the other Feyanorans she'd met.

Like all of them, he looked 12 years old, he wore a T-shirt with some sort of Rock band logo on it, jeans, and sneakers. He was confident, cocky, and slouched.

He bent over his equipment doing a final check that it was all connected properly. It looked like a really high-tech stereo system with five foot tall speakers aimed to each compass point.

Amy leaned over his shoulder, half watching what he was doing, half staring at him in fascination.

He stood up abruptly and Amy stepped back with surprise.

"Look," he said, turning to her, "I'm sure you're very good looking for a grown-up. But you're not my type."

Amy's jaw sagged open. "What?" she said, flummoxed.

"No offense. But it's not going to happen," he said, completely serious, and a bit supercilious.

That's when the penny dropped. Amy stared at him, suddenly realizing why he was different. "How _old_ are you?"

"I'm seventeen. And I don't go for older women."

Rory heard that last remark and stomped up, his face like thunder. He loomed over the boy.

The teenager looked up at him with complete unconcern.

Amy put her hand over her mouth, grinning. She looked at the man and boy glaring at each other and suddenly realized, if she and Rory ever had kids, they'd probably look a lot like Stanley.

"What were you saying?" Rory ground out.

"She's yours then?" the teen asked, with a flick of his red hair toward Amy. "You ought to keep her on a leash."

Amy broke out into peals of laughter.

—————

"Come on." The Doctor swooped down on them in a rush. "The sheriff's got everything under control here. There's something I want to check out."

—————

The Doctor dragged them back up to the house and around to the kitchen. He pulled out a device that looked like an old war surplus walkie-talkie from the 1950's, it had a little round screen where the speaker grill should be.

"What's that?" Amy asked.

"Why are we going through here again?" Rory asked at the same time. "We already looked in here."

"But not with this, " the Doctor waggled his device. "It's a portable time-space visualizer." He pulled out the long antenna and swept it around the kitchen, scanning. "With a bit of luck, this will show us what happened here. Save a lot of time."

A snowy, indistinct picture formed on the screen, there was no sound. The Doctor whacked it on the side, "Unfortunately, the reception is rubbish."

Amy and Rory crowded over his shoulder to get a look. Slowly the scene resolved slightly. They could just make out the outline of the kitchen and the child's high chair that stood before them - the mother and baby moved like blobs in the static. It was like watching an old-fashioned black and white TV broadcast from the very edge of the transmission field.

The mother fed the baby with no sign of alarm. Then the image got blurrier - nearly washing out, the Doctor fast forwarded it, trying to get past the distortion. Something big moved across the screen.

Amy gasped.

The Doctor rewound and played it back. Amid the general blurriness - a large form crossed the scene - something much larger than the Feyanorans. Looming. Oddly shaped. It wasn't human.

*

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	7. Chapter 7

"Doctor, what is that?" Amy demanded, almost yanking the visualizer out of his hands to get a better look.

The Doctor looked up at the ceiling. "Well, that explains the scuff marks."

"How did that thing even fit in here?" Rory demanded. "It must be seven feet tall."

"Hush!" Amy waved him down, eyes glued to the screen, squinting. The screen went even blurrier, until it washed out completely. "Ahh! Come on!" she whacked it in irritation, trying to jar it back into working.

"It's no use, Amy," the Doctor said, twisting some of the dials. "It's not the scanner. Something was actually interfering with the visibility."

"What does that mean?" Amy demanded, more affected than she'd admit by the fuzzy image of that thing looming over the baby's chair.

"Doctor!" Rory suddenly yelled, pointing. "Your celery has changed color!"

The Doctor looked down to see his celery had turned a bright maroon. He grabbed it off his lapel and quickly took a bite. Chewing, he started investigating the room.

"Doesn't that mean something in here is poisonous to you?" Amy said, worriedly.

"Yes. But where's it coming from?" He started prowling around the room, peering into corners. He held the celery up to the ventilation duct.

"Maybe you should leave the searching to us, Doctor," Rory said worriedly. "You should go outside if something here's affecting you."

"Nonsense," the Doctor said, taking another bite of celery. He burped. "Sorry. Celery never did sit well with me. The change in color," he waved the red stalk at them, "indicates a change in the phytochemicals in the celery which forms a natural antidote."

"Nevertheless," Rory said, pushing him toward the door, "I'd feel better if you went outside."

Amy plucked his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "Here, set this and I'll scan the room, you can read the results outside," she ordered.

"I am perfectly all right!" the Doctor protested, halting and not budging no matter how much Rory pushed. "I have got contacts in my eyes, filters stuffed up my nose, and I am eating this disgusting celery. Nothing in here is going to affect me."

"Doctor!" Jeff trotted in holding up a bunch of maroon celery. Before he could say anything else the Doctor tore a stalk of celery off the bunch and started eating it too, somewhat compulsively.

"Thank you," the Doctor said, absently, chewing. "Wait a minute," he looked down at the dirty celery in his hand. He swallowed. "Where did you find this?" he shook the celery at the young deputy.

Jeff's brows beetled at the man's odd behavior, he jerked a thumb behind him. "Outside, in the kitchen garden. You asked to be notified if we found anything unusual," he pointed out, dubiously.

"Show me!"

Jeff led the Doctor, Rory, and Amy out the back kitchen door and around the edge of the house to a large patch of vegetable garden growing on the side away from the stables. One whole section of bright, leafy, knee-high plants had turned a brilliant maroon.

"Ah Hah!" The Doctor yelled in a note of triumphant discovery, pointing. He knelt down to finger the maroon leaves. He looked up and around the rest of the garden, with that bright-eyed, "hound dog on a scent" look that Amy recognized.

The Doctor jumped up and scanned the whole garden with the sonic screwdriver, including the grass around the verges. He flicked the sonic up and read the readings. Nodding to himself he then scanned the building, turning in a circle he scanned the the empty horse corral, the nearby houses and the field of wheat.

He snapped the sonic shut with a triumphant snap. "Of course! Brilliant! Why didn't I see it before?!" He thumped the screwdriver on his forehead.

"What?" Rory asked.

"They were gassed," the Doctor said, turning to them with a gleaming look of fascination in his eye.

"The whole farm, gassed unconscious."

—————

"It must have rolled in like a fog," he said. "It coated everything. It's a good thing I didn't touch anything in there before, and that they had all the windows open. It was only when I gave myself a concentrated dose by sniffing that wheat that it became a problem," he explained.

"We've been touching things and it hasn't affected us," Rory pointed out. "Why's that? Why would it affect the farmers and you but not us?"

"In its gaseous form it no doubt would affect you, just like it affected the farmers. It's only because it's started to decay into the Praxis range that it affects me, and not you. It seems to be designed to break down quickly. Which makes sense if they didn't want it detected."

"They who?" Amy demanded.

"I don't know," the Doctor said, grimly. "More to the point, how did they manage to gas the whole settlement, especially the size of area we're talking about?"

He turned to the deputy. "Have you had any thefts of chemicals lately? Anything else like this happen?" The Doctor waved his hand at the deserted farm. It was getting late in the day, the shadows were lengthening, the breeze had warmed with afternoon, the only sounds were the rustle of wind in the wheat and the far off calls of the other searchers.

"No." Jeff shook his head. "Wait," he held up a finger and thought for a moment. "Chemicals you say? There was a burglary at a fertilizer factory south of here in the next county. Supplies and equipment were taken.

"It was weird, because they just yanked out the equipment, no finesse, just cut the power lines and took off with a bunch of supplies. The machines never showed up on the black market. We never did find out why anyone would want to steal fertilizer."

"Oh, lots of useful things can be made out of fertilizer," the Doctor said. "Can you give me a list of what was taken?"

"Doctor!" Dutch ran up around the corner of the house waving his tracker. "We're getting a tracking signal!"

"What? Where?" the Doctor focused all his intensity on him.

"South."

*

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	8. Chapter 8

They all ran for the airfield, pounding across the lawn to the tarmac, the longer legged grown-ups outstripping the shorter Feyanorans.

"Jeff, we'll be taking the ATV, you'll be in charge while..." Dutch turned as they reached the airfield. "What are you doing?"

Jeff lowered his cell phone from his ear as he followed. "Just calling my wife and telling her I probably won't be home tonight."

"Good idea," Dutch said. "Can you call Candy and tell her for me as well? And see if she checked on our daughter. I don't trust the boys."

The Doctor turned as he entered the hatch of the ATV and grinned, eyes alight. "Your wife's name is Candy?" he asked. 

"Yes. You have a problem with that?" Dutch asked aggressively, hands on hips.

"No, no," the Doctor said. He grinned wider. "It's a nice name. Sweet."

Amy groaned.

 

Another ATV had arrived while they'd been in the house, and was parked catty-corner to the sheriff's, forming a plaza between the two ships. A curly-haired, 12 year old boy in blue tweed was presiding over a table set up outside its hatch, dispatching forensic teams and equipment with the panache of a seasoned professional.

"Clarke!" the sheriff yelled and went to join his colleague. The boy looked up and waved, then turned back to his map and directed another team off toward the silos.

Stanley downloaded something from his array into a handheld tracker larger and more elaborate than the sheriff's. He kicked down a portable control stand and came trotting toward the ATV, festooned with equipment.

The three tripods huddled in a quiet conference at the far end of the tarmac. They broke up, two of them twirling toward the ATV hatch, the other returning to their ship.

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory stepped into the ATV, out of the way, as Stanley and the tripods clambered on board.

Stanley set up a tech nest at the back of the cabin, setting up his remote board, which looked like a cross between a portable synthesizer, and a complex sound mixing station covered with hundreds of knobs and sliders.

Dutch climbed in and turned to close the hatch. Jeff stopped him and leaned in. "Candy says Janet's been discharged from the hospital with a flex cast. They took her home and stopped on the way to check on Amelia. Everything's fine." He nodded to them, closed the hatch door, and gave a thump to signal it was secure.

"Amelia?" the Doctor and Rory both said, staring at the small sheriff.

Dutch puffed out his burly, 12-year-old chest. "My first grandbaby. She's due to be born soon." 

"Amelia?" the Doctor and Rory both stared at Amy.

"What?" she said, crossing her arms. "It's a good name."

—————

Dutch jumped into the pilot's seat, and started up the ATV. "Everybody get secured in," he ordered over his shoulder. They scrambled for their seats, activating the restraint fields. The engines whirred up to speed. "Stanley?" Dutch asked.

Stanley worked his board. "250 south, three grids west."

"Right," the sheriff said. "Everyone hang on."

He lifted the ship and zoomed out over the plantation house, heading south.

—————

Countryside whizzed past them outside. A silence fell in the cabin.

Amy stretched out her hose-clad legs. Stanley eyed her, but turned back to his board. Amy ignored him and turned to study the little pink aliens sitting on the bench seats across from her.

"I'm surprised you stayed on to help," she said with her usual tactlessness. "Don't you have to report back to work? Won't your boss get mad?"

The slightly larger of the two (she couldn't really tell them apart) replied. "I'm Captain/owner of my ship. My family has traded with the Kitterangs for generations. If something has happened to them we want to know what, and help if we can. Work can wait."

Rory looked at the Doctor in surprise. The ATV flew along with a steady hum, there were only the few of them on board, all human in one way or another. Rory turned to stare at the small aliens sitting on the bench farther down from him. Two legs propped them up in front like a dog, with the other leg curled forward around the base of their little round bodies, forming a stable seat. They had no expressions, no faces, they were completely blank, completely inhuman. Yet... "Good neighbors," he whispered in wonder. His eyes widened at the thought.

The Doctor smiled.

—————

"How long till we get there?" Amy asked.

"At this speed, probably 25 minutes or so," the Doctor answered.

Rory's stomach growled. He turned beet red. "Sorry." Amy's stomach gurgled back from across the aisle in sympathetic response.

Stanley looked at the grown-ups, then set aside his remote board on its foldaway legs and went and opened a cupboard built into the ATV's back wall. Inside was a wealth of emergency supplies. Including boxes of power bars. He pulled out a handful and pocketed one. He turned and tossed bars to the others. "Catch!"

All three travelers managed to catch theirs despite their surprise. Stanley looked down at the bar in his hand, then looked up at the larger hands and bodies of the almost giant grown-ups filling the cabin. He tossed each of them a second bar.

"Thanks," said Rory as he bent to retrieve his second bar. "It's been a long time since breakfast."

"If you're handing those out, pass one up here, Stanley," Dutch said, waving a hand without looking. The Doctor released his seat lock and went up and gave the sheriff one of his bars. The sheriff looked up at him. "Thanks."

"No problem." The Doctor peeled his open and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. He watched Stanley struggle with whether or not to offer bars to the tripods. The boy wasn't used to dealing with aliens. Grown-ups were just oversized humans, but did tripods even eat?

The Doctor enjoyed watching the boy figure it out. It was one of the things he loved about his young companions. Watching them work out things, stretching their worldview. Stanley apparently realized that if the tripods were routinely buying grain, they probably ate it, and the power bars were mostly granola -- the same grains. But he had no idea if tripods even had mouths.

"Do you guys want some?" he finally asked, nodding at the tripods. "We've got other things. There's some juice pouches." He obviously was wondering about those mouths again.

"No, thank you," Schwillic said with dignity, vibrating his skin. "We're not hungry," he let the boy off the hook.

"I'll take one!" the Doctor's hand shot up where he had sprawled behind the Captain's chair, sitting on the floor.

Stanley scowled at his exuberance, but tossed him a purple juice pouch. Amy and Rory's hands went up, their mouths full, and he tossed them each one. He tossed the Doctor another one when the Time Lord nodded at the sheriff.

"So what do you think we're going to find, Dutch?" the Doctor asked.

The husky, young-looking sheriff took the open juice pouch from the Doctor with a nod of thanks. "I don't know. Survivors hopefully. But it could as easily be some farmhand working a far field that doesn't even know anything is wrong..."

"But..." the Doctor prompted.

"But it's the first tracer we've detected, other than ours. It's got to mean something!"

"That's the spirit!" The Doctor clapped him on the back.

—————

The tracking signal was coming from a large structure out in the middle of the fields. It was the size of a three-story building, and looked like something Frank Lloyd Wright would build -- all weird angles and odd proportions, made of glass, metal, and brick.

"Brick?" Rory asked. "They make machines out of brick?"

"Contra-gravity drive is very efficient," the Doctor said over his shoulder. "It doesn't matter how heavy something is. Local materials remember?"

It had left a trail of half-cropped wheat behind it and Amy realized they were looking at one of this world's harvesting machines.

They flew around it three times, slowly, everyone keeping an eye out, looking for any problems or clues. The harvester wasn't moving. Didn't appear to be functioning at all. There were no people that they could see.

"Take us down, Dutch," the Doctor ordered. Ignoring the fact that the sheriff had already started landing.

He set them down on the cleared half of the fields, a dozen yards from the harvester. Wheat stubble crackled under their feet as they jumped out of the ATV. The air was warm and dusty with late evening. A few gulls floated, crying overhead, but otherwise a grim silence filled the air. A rim of forest sprang up farther east, but the rest of the area was golden wheatfields as far as the eye could see.

The harvester had cut down the wheat stalks leaving sharp four-inch wheat stubble carpeting the ground. Amy squealed as the sharp stubble poked her bare ankles above her slippers. "Ouch! Dammit."

Rory gave her a repressive scowl. She scowled back.

"Spread out, " Dutch ordered, waving a hand, "See what you can find."

He and the Doctor headed for the cab of the harvester, a wrap-around bubble of plexiglass holding the main controls of the huge machine. Amy, Rory, and the tripods spread out to scan the ground and look for clues.

Stanley had his head down, bent over his handheld tracker. He wandered off after his own readings.

The door to the harvester was latched but not shut properly. Dutch jumped up and stuck his head inside. The seat was empty, the machine was shut down, the bank of complex electronics beyond, like the controls of a cruise ship, were unattended, there was no indication of anything wrong, there was simply no one inside. Just like the farm.

"Over here!" Stanley yelled.

The Doctor and Dutch turned to see Stanley walking in a circle among the sheared wheat. His tracker was pointing at the ground. They jumped down from the harvester and trotted over.

"What is it?" Dutch asked with foreboding.

The red-haired boy gave him a grave look, then knelt down, the antenna of his tracker pointing at something on the ground. He shoved aside the stalks of wheat. Something glinted in the loamy brown earth. He dug down and pulled up a small metal disk, covered with dirt.

"It's a trap," the Doctor said, his head snapping up, scanning. Rory arrived beside him and saw the look on his face.

"What...?"

There was a loud "Whump!" from the wheatfield. A bank of gray fog boiled up out of the wheat and rolled toward them.

"It's gas!" The Doctor turned his head, took a deep, clean breath and stopped breathing. "Get inside the Harvester!" he yelled. Stanley sprinted for the safety of the ATV. The Doctor threw Rory toward the nearby harvester with one arm and turned to find Amy with the other -- she was yards away. He saw her turn, start running, then the poisonous fog swamped her and he saw her fall, unconscious.

The Doctor grabbed Dutch and threw the small man, protesting, up into the cab were Rory caught him.

He could hear a deep, droning sound inside the fog. The Doctor turned and saw something moving. He rushed to get Amy, floundering toward her in the blanketing fog. All he could see was gray.

"Doctor!" he heard Rory yell behind him. Something large and hard as stone slammed into his side, knocking him down. Something that felt like tree branches scraped along his arms, trying to catch him. The Doctor rolled away. The droning sound deepened and moved in the fog. There was more than one of the things in here.

A gunshot went off. Rory screamed, "Doctor!" And the Doctor realized Dutch was shooting, trying to give him some cover. If he didn't get back to the cab he'd run out of air and fall prey to whatever was in the fog. His nose plugs might buy him some time, as long as he remembered not to breathe through his mouth. But if he delayed too long, Rory and Dutch might fail to close the cabin before the gas got in with them.

He rolled as something large darted at him again. He cleared the fog. He couldn't see any trace of Amy's red shirt. Hearts breaking in his chest, he sprinted for the harvester, jumped, caught Rory's hand and pulled the door shut behind him. Something large rammed into the hatch from the outside.

"Get into the bowels -- away from the glass!" the Doctor yelled. Fog had swamped the harvester -- deadly gray pressing against all the windows. A large form, indistinct in the fog, slammed against the glass, like a boulder. The glass cracked, spider-webbing under the blow.

"Go!" the Doctor yelled, he chivvied Dutch and Rory down the companionway behind the cab. Huge forms beat against the harvester. Shuddering even the huge, heavy structure.

The Doctor shoved them into the engine compartment, slammed the hatch and turned the flywheel.

They were safe. Tons of metal and stone stood between them and the outside. But they could still hear the muffled blows. Feel the walls shake.

"Look around," the Doctor said, waving at the engines, he turned on the sonic screwdriver and used it as a flashlight to find the light switch. "Be sure there are no gaps to the outside. Stuff them with your clothing if you have to. We can't let any of that gas get in. Or anything else."

*

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	9. Chapter 9

The thumping never ceased and showed no signs of abating. The things, whatever they were, seemed demonically determined to get inside.

Fortunately the Doctor and the others had found no gaps in their haven, and the sides of the engine compartment were stacked with footlockers and crates of tools for them to sit on.

They occasionally stared up at the walls worriedly as a particularly hard thud threatened to rock the harvester.

"So how do we get out of this?" Rory asked of no one in particular, after a particularly ringing wallop.

Dutch pulled out his cell phone, flipped it open, and hit a button. "Janine?"

Rory looked at the Doctor in consternation.

The Doctor smiled. "Well, there's _that_ taken care of," he said in admiration.

They listened as Dutch explained the situation and told Janine to call out the militia. He gave her their coordinates, then snapped his phone shut. He went back to brooding, his shoulders tense. They settled in to wait.

The air was close, the thuds nerve-wracking. A screeching sound, like claws on metal ripped through the room. Rory grabbed the prybar he'd found in one of the crates. He looked around frantically, but there was no breach in their walls. He clutched the prybar, his heart thudding. "Doctor...? Amy?" he finally asked, unable to hold it in any longer.

"I don't know, Rory," the Doctor said quietly. "Right now, all we can do is survive so we can rescue her." The Doctor's lips were thin with concern, his jaw hard. He didn't look at all like a geography teacher at the moment, more like an angry ancient warrior.

Rory took comfort from that.

—————

A bit more than an hour later, the rocking blows against the harvester abruptly ceased. A few minutes later they could hear a muffled chuffing sound.

Dutch's phone beeped. He scrambled to answer it, almost dropping it.

"Sheriff Anderson?" A calm, authoritative voice asked.

"Yes, we're here."

"I'm Colonel Tildaith. We are outside with a combat chopper. The fog has disbursed. It's safe to come out now."

The Doctor took the phone from Dutch. "Any sign of our assailants?" he asked urgently.

"No sir. We caught something on the edge of our scans but they disappeared before we arrived. It's only us out here."

"Right," the Doctor said, tossing the phone back to Dutch. "Here we go."

—————

The Doctor opened the harvester hatch. Fresh air wafted in from outside.

"Amy!" Rory yelled, as he pushed his head out of the harvester beside the Doctor.

The Doctor flinched as Rory's voice bellowed in his ear, but he didn't protest. His eyes darted to the last spot he'd seen Amy. There was nothing there now but crushed wheat. He heard the soft, hurt noise Rory made when he realized that Amy was gone.

The sun was going down.

The Doctor leapt down out of the harvester and sprinted over to the ATV where he had last seen Stanley running. He ripped open the hatch door and stuck his head inside, a quick scan revealed no sign of Stanley.

Rory ran up behind the Doctor, who was half lying in the ATV hatch doorway. "Anything?" he asked.

The Doctor stood back and shook his head. "No." He turned and strode briskly back to the sheriff who was talking to an official looking, black-haired boy.

A large chopper rested on the wheat stubble beside the harvester; bulbous, black, and bristling with machine gun turrets, it had no visible blades. A dozen, 4 1/2 foot tall Marines scouted the area, dressed in black body armor, combat helmets, and sporting compact machine guns.

Colonel Tildaith was a lean, sharp 12 year old with jet black hair, and big black sunglasses. He looked crisp, no-nonsense, and lethal.

"It's a Man in Black," Rory whispered in surprise.

"Colonel Tildaith," the Doctor said, holding out his hand. "I don't suppose you found any survivors out here? A grown-up female, a red-haired 17 year old, and a couple of tripods, have you?"

The Colonel shook his hand firmly. "Doctor," he nodded in greeting, obviously having been briefed by Dutch. "We haven't found anyone as yet."

"Did you get a good look at whatever was out here?" the Doctor asked, giving him that deep-eyed searching look.

"We got something on the edge of our scanners, but they were indistinct with distance and fog."

"I'd like to take a look at those," the Doctor said. "But first we need to find out where the..." his eyes drifted away to the battered harvester looming beyond them.

—————

His voice trailed off. The harvester was no longer as pristine as when they'd first seen it.

The Doctor strode off around it, frowning, scanning the damage, Rory followed him, desperately scouring the wheatfields for any sign of survivors. The sheriff and the colonel followed them.

They found the scuff marks where the harvester had been repeatedly battered, noted the dents and damage, the crumbling masonry, They gauged the kind of force needed for such effects. Rory shivered. They found the cracked windshield. Apparently something had continued to work at the safety glass, a small hole had been dug out of the center of the spiderweb crack.

There was no sign of Amy, no lost shoe, no scarf or earring.

"Which direction did they go?" the Doctor demanded in a hard voice, turning to the Colonel.

"South," Tildaith answered. "But before you suggest it, we already did a loop south on the way in, hoping we'd intercept them. But we lost them, they completely vanished off our scopes. And I don't fancy facing whatever did that," he waved at the battered harvester, "in the dark with only night vision goggles. Especially since they can fly. I'll not risk my men uselessly."

The Doctor didn't point out that half his "men" were little girls. That would have been pedantic. Besides he had no intention of arguing with the man. Some notions of chivalry ran too deep to fight.

"Yes," the Doctor said, he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Quite right."

"We'll return as soon as it's light," the Colonel promised.

Rory cursed and started pacing furiously, kicking at the wheat. He suddenly jumped up as if he'd been electrified, he stared in horror at the base of the harvester. The Doctor ran over to see what he was staring at.

A single, bruised pink tentacle waved out from under the huge machine, half buried in the wheat that crowded right up to the sides. It was obviously injured, the puce colored skin mottled a darker red in places, shading to purple in others.

The Doctor knelt down to help, but before he could take the tentacle in hand, it was withdrawn back under the harvester and a second later the pink bulb of the tripod's body backed out from under the shelter of the farm machine. He pushed himself out with all three legs, rolling backwards in an exhausted lump.

"Toftoc?" the Doctor asked. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver as if to scan the little alien, but stopped at the last moment, noting the loose, injured skin. He looked at the screwdriver and put it back in his pocket.

The little alien gave a shivery sigh, its skin rippling in a painful looking vibration. "Yes." He rolled onto his side, legs limp. The Doctor carefully picked the small person up. His little pink body barely filled the Time Lords large hands.

The Doctor snugged the weary alien into the crook of his elbow like a baby and carefully tucked its dangling legs in around its body. "Thank you," it whispered weakly.

"Do you have medical supplies aboard your ship?" the Doctor asked. The little alien gave a slight wiggle that might have been a nod. "The Captain?" it whispered.

"Taken, " the Doctor admitted grimly, looking at Rory. "Along with the others." He gave Rory a clench-jawed look, daring the nurse to make a fuss over Amy when there was an emergency here to deal with.

Rory looked pale as a sheet, his freckles standing out. But he nodded. The Doctor clasped him gratefully on the shoulder. "Hold on, Toftoc," the Doctor said. "We're going to get you back to your ship." He strode off with long determined strides, none of his normal clumsiness showing now.

The Doctor strode directly into the ATV, taking the hip high step without breaking stride, flowing up with a thoughtless strength a human couldn't match. Rory scrambled in after him. The Doctor turned, "Take off your vest," he ordered, nodding at Rory's quilted vest.

Rory shrugged out of it. The Doctor lifted the elbow cradling Toftoc, the alien was apparently unconscious. Realizing what the Doctor meant, Rory held up his vest like a nest and took the small person from him, he wrapped the puffy quilted fabric over the little alien, warmth being a treatment for shock for all the creatures he knew. The Doctor nodded.

"Get strapped in." The Doctor leaned out of the hatch. "Dutch!" he bellowed. The sheriff broke off his urgent discussion with the colonel and ran over. "We're going back to the farm," the Doctor said grimly. Dutch didn't argue but climbed in and headed for the cockpit. The Doctor turned to the sleek Colonel, "Follow us back," he ordered the military man, as if he had all the right in the world, "I want to see those scans." He pulled the hatch closed and dogged it.

Then he dove for Stanley's remote tracer board. He pulled the complex keyboard over his knees as Dutch lifted them away. His fingers flew, working the hundreds of sliders and dials as if he did it every day of his life. His eyes flickered over the readings.

He suddenly slumped back with relief. He looked at Rory. "She's alive."

*

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	10. Chapter 10

Amy woke up feeling bruised and scratched as if she'd been manhandled by a tree. Something flat and gritty pressed into her cheek. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on a dirt floor in a cave of some sort. She pushed herself up on her knees and spat dirt off her lips.

She found one of the tripods lying beside her, all three legs curled under his body, looking like an abused stuffed toy. He seemed to be unconscious.

She itched all over, and looking down, realized she was covered in dirt. She could even feel dirt down her bra. She ignored it for the moment and looked around. Light shone in through a round hole in the domed ceiling, she couldn't see sky, but it was too bright to tell if it was some sort of light well or a recessed artificial light. Whatever it was, it wasn't natural.

She turned and surveyed the rest of the room and found Stanley crumpled on the floor at the base of the far wall. She crawled over to check on him. He was alive but unconscious. He was as covered in dirt as she was. It was thick in his hair, turning the red to brown. But he was breathing.

She shook her own hair. Dirt showered out like dandruff. She brushed at her arm. "Ugh!" she hated feeling dirty.

She considered her surroundings. There was air, and there was light. They appeared to be underground. She didn't have any idea how they'd gotten there. And how had they gotten so dirty? The last thing she remembered was the fog swamping her and her brain going all fuzzy.

She suddenly looked around in confusion. How _had_ they gotten in here? There wasn't any door. That light hole wasn't big enough to squeeze through. She frowned and peered closer at the nearby wall, and realized it wasn't stone at all.

She brushed her fingers over the smooth, lumpy surface. It was warm! Well, not warm, but not cold or gritty like stone would be. It was hard, but... She scratched her chipped nail against the surface. It gave off a hollow scritching sound. Her ragged nail caught on the surface and peeled off a small strip.

Amy's eyebrows jumped.

Paper?

\----------

Stanley groaned behind her. She turned to see him starting to wake up. She shuffled back to this side and brushed the worst of the dirt away from his eyes and nose. "Stanley?"

He batted her hands away irritably. He floundered up out of the depths of sleep, blinking dirty lashes. "What's going on?" he asked querulously. He swiped a sleeve over his face. "Where are we?"

Amy waved a hand at the cave, which was obviously some sort of holding cell. "We appear to have been kidnapped, like the farmers. And I don't know about you, but I'm going to get as much of this dirt off of me as I can. Then find a way out."

\----------

"How do you know she's still alive?" Rory asked, cradling Toftoc in his lap as the ATV sped through the night. "Dutch said a tracer would register even if the person was dead," he pointed out, stumbling over the last word.

The Doctor looked up from across the cabin where he had the tracker board balanced on his legs. "I know because a living human being gives off distinct bio-electric rhythms. And two intersecting energy fields will slightly alter each other's signatures. With this board I can detect the battery in Amy's tracer, analyze the energy patterns, and 'Voila!'" He threw his hands up like a magician. "Life signs!"

"How come _they_ don't know that trick?" Rory asked, nodding at the sheriff who was piloting the ship.

"Ah, well, not everyone is as clever as me," the Doctor said.

The Doctor set aside the board and went and sat down in front of Rory. He uncovered the tripod and carefully took one of the "legs" in his hand, curling his fingers around the spot where the leg joined the body, apparently checking for some sort of pulse.

Rory didn't like the look of the little alien. He had no idea how to examine the little creature, or what to look for. He couldn't even check for concussion because he wasn't sure if it had a skull. The little body felt heavy and a bit squishy in his hands, yet also a bit stiff, like a cross between a starfish and a jellyfish.

The Doctor looked up and gave him a grim look.

"Dutch, can you go any faster?" he asked the pilot.

Dutch turned and saw the little alien's purplish-gray pallor. "Hang on."

The ship leapt forward.

They waited in grim silence as the ATV sped through the night. They could hear the chuffing sound of the chopper pacing them.

Rory twisted and looked out through the darkened window. All he saw was his own reflection. "Doctor, how can the chopper be following us? How could they even call it a chopper? The blades were only about 3 feet long," he said, trying to take his mind off their situation.

The Doctor sat beside him, one hand comfortingly on Toftoc's back.

"Those weren't blades, they were forcefield projectors, " the Doctor answered quietly. "The actual 'blades' are forcefields that cover four times the area of simple propellor blades. They give the choppers a degree of thrust and lift far beyond a regular helicopter. And the force field blades are deformable, allowing the choppers to fly in ways a regular helicopter can't. It makes for a powerful, formidable military craft. Quite ingenious really."

Rory looked down at the Doctor sitting cross-legged on the floor beside him. He felt dread, like lead in his stomach. "What are these things, Doctor? What are we fighting?"

The Doctor ran a hand over his face, "I don't know, Rory. But I have some very nasty suspicions."

\----------

They arrived back at the airfield to find it illuminated with floodlights. They set the ATV down outside the square of activity and the Doctor undogged the hatch. He turned and scooped Toftoc out of Rory's lap, jumped down and sprinted across the tarmac to the Tripod's ship.

"I called ahead to warn Jhael, he'll be waiting!" Dutch yelled after the Doctor.

Rory followed the Doctor, only vaguely registering the chopper setting down behind them, crowding the already crowded airfield. They pounded up to the huge Tripod ship, its pink brilliance muted to a silvery white in the moonlight and reflected floodlights.

A ramp extended down from the side and the remaining tripod stood silhouetted in the small round hatch at the top. The Doctor ran straight up the steep ramp, he stopped at the hatch, it was only two feet across, there was no way he'd be able to fit inside.

"He said you had medical supplies," the Doctor said.

"We've got a stasis chamber," the last tripod said. "And an autodoc in our ship at the spaceport." He pulled forward a small round hover-pallet. The Doctor carefully lowered Toftoc onto it. The injured tripod hadn't regained consciousness.

"The Captain?" Jhael asked.

"Taken, with Amy and Stanley. Our next job is to locate and rescue them," the Doctor answered.

"If you need help, be sure to call on us," the tripod said, activating a force dome over his injured crewmate.

"I will. Take good care of him," the Doctor bounded back down the ramp, almost knocking over Rory in his haste. The tripod pulled the pallet into the ship and sealed the hatch. A second later the ramp started retracting. The Doctor and Rory hopped off the end.

"Get clear!" The Doctor shooed Rory toward the lights, and less than a minute later the huge pink craft sailed upward with a backwash of air, pivoted on its axis and sped away into the night.

\----------

"Are we going to rescue Amy now?" Rory asked anxiously.

"There's nothing we can do tonight," the Doctor said, as he led the way to the lighted quadrangle of the airstrip. "Colonel Tildaith refused to fly at night and I hardly blame him."

"What about the Tardis?" Rory prodded.

"Even the Tardis needs to know where to land. I know it's hard, Rory. But you need to relax. Conserve your strength. We'll do everything we can tonight. We know Amy is alive, we just have to hope she can hold out until daylight."

"Don't you care?"

"Rory!" The Doctor's bellow startled Rory backwards a step. The thunderous look on the Doctor's face made him blanche and Rory realized he'd crossed a line.

The Doctor shoved both hands through his hair and visibly harnessed the power pouring off him. He sighed out.

"I love Amy as much as you do," he said calmly, looking Rory in the eye. "I am _not_ taking this lightly." He turned and stalked off. Rory followed, chastened.

He found the Doctor within the lit quadrangle rifling through the equipment on the forensics table. Picking up things, examining them, and discarding them.

"Ah!" He picked up a wand that looked a lot like a smaller version of his portable sunlight. With pleasure he started running it over his hair like a brush, though it had no bristles, and it didn't straighten his fly-away hair.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Rory asked, his eyebrows beetling as the Doctor then ran the light over his face, around his neck and down his arms.

"This," the Doctor brandished the wand with no evidence of the irritation of a minute ago, "is a molecular scanner -- used for skimming up the smallest traces of evidence."

He ran the scanner over his stomach, legs and boots, he even twisted around and skimmed his bum. Then he struggled out of his jacket and skimmed the back of it before reskimming his shirt, front and back, pushing up his cuffs and skimming his wrists and hands. "I need to get rid of the gas residue before it starts to break down. Can't go passing out right in the middle of rescuing Amy. That would be inconvenient."

The curly-haired boy in blue tweed came bustling up just as he finished. "I'm sorry, sir. But this is very delicate equipment. I'll have to ask you to..."

"Ah, Clarke!" the Doctor said. "Just the man I wanted to see. Here." He shoved the medical device at the boy. "Chart the breakdown of the residue in this and compare it to the residue you found here. That should give you a timetable for when the farmers were taken."

Clark stared at the unexpected boon. He grabbed the skimmer and jumped into his ATV and its on-site lab to get to work.

The Doctor shrugged back into his jacket and he and Rory turned to survey the activity in the quadrangle. A lit plaza had been constructed by the three parked ATVs, another had apparently arrived while they were gone and had set up a catering table under an awning beside their craft.

The searchers and forensics teams, soldiers and police were apparently wrapping up for the night, converging for a meal before heading back to the city or whatever accommodations they'd arranged for the night.

"They're not clumsy," Rory observed.

"Pardon?" the Doctor said, as he reached around to straighten his collar, settling his bow tie and straightening his jacket.

Rory turned to look at him. He waved at the plaza full of 12 year olds. The ghostly reflection of the airfield tower loomed behind in the darkness.

"They don't move like children. Most children are a bit clumsy, always testing their bodies. Running a bit faster than they are capable of and falling down, trying to lift more than they can carry. They don't." He turned back and watched a group of four helmeted and armored soldiers join a catering line. A 12 year old girl in a pigtail trotted a briefcase of evidence over to the ATV behind them, sticking her head in to address a comment to Clarke. The cooks across the way laughed and joked, their childishly chubby cheeks red from the steam as they competently ladled up food for the crowd. "It's like they've had years to learn their body's strengths and weaknesses."

"So they have," the Doctor said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and slouching comfortably, his floppy hair falling over his face, a little boy grin on his own 900 year-old face. Rory shook his head at him and turned to watch some more.

"It's weird," Rory said. "They move like adults."

The Doctor gave him a few minutes to soak it in, then clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's go find Colonel Tildaith."

\----------

The chopper was a large aggressive bulk looming behind the ATVs. Most of the soldiers had already gone to get supper, but four alert guards held a perimeter around the craft, and waved the Doctor and Rory through.

They found Tildaith in the opened body of the craft, with his pilot and what looked like his unit's technical guru. The three Feyanorans turned as the Doctor and Rory climbed up into the combat chopper.

"Let's take a look at those scans," the Doctor said by way of greeting.

Tildaith nodded to his technical boffin and the ginger-haired girl bent over a portable workstation calling something up on her screen.

"What can you tell me about these aggressors, Doctor?" Tildaith asked. He looked as crisp and efficient as ever, somehow wearing his body armor more like a well pressed suit than as kevlar. Without his glasses, Rory noticed, he had a somewhat handsome, ferrety face, sharp nosed, with flashing gray eyes that didn't miss anything. "I checked up on your records," Tildaith continued, "And you seem to have extensive experience dealing with unknown species. Can you tell me what we're fighting here? I'm assuming from what evidence we have, that we aren't dealing with humans."

"And what does the evidence tell you about them?" the Doctor asked, curious.

"That they are covert, organized, intelligent, and many. Capable of working together toward a goal, finding the resources they need, removing large numbers of people in a short time, and setting elaborate traps. They are physically large, strong, apparently immune to the gas they use, and they can fly."

The Doctor smiled, "A very concise summation, Colonel."

"Is there anything you can add to it?"

The Doctor nodded toward the tech's monitor, "That depends on what these scans show us."

The girl turned her screen toward the grown-ups and activated the scan files. The view was blurred by fog and distance, the view shot from above. Three indistinct forms were flying low over the wheat field.

"I can't tell anything from that," Rory protested.

"That's as enhanced as I can get it, sir," the girl tech apologized.

"Perhaps you'd let me...?" the Doctor raised his eyebrows and nodded at her equipment.

She looked to her Colonel, he nodded. She stepped aside and the Doctor bent over her boards. He flicked through the controls, pulling up screen after screen of text too fast for Rory to follow. The Doctor made little, indistinct thinking noises, humming and ah-hahing to himself, his fingers flying, ignoring his audience.

"Doctor," Rory said in a longsuffering tone he'd adopted from Amy. He could see why she found the man so annoying. "Explain." His heart gave a little pang, hearing Amy in the word.

"According to your sensors they are endothermic, roughly the mass of a horse, and show no indicators of technology. The conformation is not mammalian and does not conform to any other form on the planet."

"So they are alien," Tildaith pressed.

"Yes," the Doctor answered. "And considering their behavior, and your local stellar cluster, I have a bad idea I know who they are." His fingers whipped across the board, calling back up the earlier picture and flashing different enhancements and pattern matching patterns over it. "Just need to boost this a little..."

The screen started to resolve, the fog cleared away and the blobs enlarged and snapped into focus.

They looked like giant wasps.

*

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	11. Chapter 11

"Turn around," Amy said.

"Why?" Stanley asked.

"Because I intend to shake the dirt out of my clothes and I want a little privacy."

"Oh," he turned around.

"You'd better do the same," Amy said, hauling her red top over her head. "If we manage to get out of here we don't want to leave them a trail to follow."

"Good point," he said. She heard his clothes rustle as he followed suit.

She shook the dirt out of her shirt then spread it on the ground. With relief she whipped off her bra and gave it a vigorous snap. That was better. It wasn't just dirt that covered them, but soil, rich and loamy, and itchy. She brushed herself off and slipped the bra back on.

She looked up and found Stanley staring at her. "What?"

"Do all grown-up females look like that?" he asked.

"Like what?" Amy looked down, she didn't see anything wrong.

"Sort of, lumpy?" He seemed honestly confused, as if he'd never seen breasts before. Come to think of it, Amy realized, he probably hadn't. Prepubescent girls didn't have breasts, that meant that Feyanoran women didn't either.

"Yes," she sighed. "All grown-up women look like that. It's part of being able to give birth."

"Oh. Are you going to give birth?" he asked, looking terrified.

"No!" She rolled her eyes. "It's normal, okay? And it's impolite to stare. Turn around."

He shrugged and turned back around. She heard the sound of his zipper and the shuffle and snap as he shucked out of his jeans and shook them out.

"What about him?" she heard him ask. Since they were the only ones in here she assumed he meant the tripod. She'd checked on the little alien earlier, he seemed to still be unconscious. She's shaken him lightly, scared that he was dead, but while he hadn't responded, he was still warm, and she'd felt a slight pulse under her fingers, so she assumed he was still alive.

"I don't know. Hopefully he'll wake up soon."

Amy held up the hose she had just skimmed out of and grimaced, it was going to be impossible to get all the dirt out of them. She considered leaving them off, but decided, dirt or not, she'd feel better-armored with them on, especially since she didn't have any idea what they were facing.

She looked back at the quiescent tripod.

She looked between the tripod and her tights. If she had to, she supposed she could make a backpack out of them to carry him out in. She shrugged and slipped them back on.

"How are you doing?" she asked as she brushed the dirt off of her skirt, fortunately it was leather so it brushed off easily.

"I'm done."

"Good." She gave her shirt a last snap and pulled it back on. She checked her pockets. She always carried the essentials. A pen knife that Rory had given her, mascara, nail polish, a comb, and her phone. She turned the phone on excitedly. No signal. Damn. She put everything back in her pockets and pulled the comb through her hair.

She turned to see Stanley staring at her again, his red hair standing up in tufts from where he'd scrubbed the dirt out of it. He was looking at her comb enviously. She tossed it to him. He slicked his hair down quickly and tossed it back. "Thanks."

"No problem."

Stanley looked around their prison, a lumpy gray dome with a dirt floor, no sign of any exit. "So how do we get out of here?"

"Well, we got _in_ here somehow, so there must be an opening. Let's start by checking the walls. You start on that side." She pointed, then walked to the opposite wall and started running her hands over the papery surface.

There had to be a way out.

\----------

Amy felt her way around the walls of their prison. The paper was lumpy, smooth, and nearly as hard as stone, she knocked her knuckles against it, testing.

There didn't seem to be any door, or openings at all, except for the circle of light coming in through the ceiling, and that was only about a foot across, too narrow for them to have been shoved in here that way.

Suddenly the wall gave under her fingertips. Not a lot, but enough to show it was thinner here. Excited, she skimmed her fingers along the softer section, pressing to see how big it was.

A slit opened in the wall under the pull of the paper. Amy jumped forward, pushing at the fiber wall to widen the slit.

She reached out to pull it open with her fingers, but jumped back as the curtain wall bulged outward under her hands.

A monster pushed through.

\----------

Amy scrambled backwards. The creature was eight feet tall and loomed in the small cell. It was an insect, like a wasp, but green like a grasshopper. Its antenna brushed the ceiling then bent back down in squared off corners.

It had a triangular head, with a huge multifaceted eye on each side, a knobby proboscis projected from its forehead, and two sets of mandibles, a smaller upper set, looking like something on a crab, and a large lower set looking massive enough to bite a chunk out of a bison.

Its thorax and long abdomen were held up off the ground by six long spindly legs that joined the body under where, on a human, the throat would be. It stood upright, like a man.

The longest set of back legs was jointed backward, like a grasshoppers, the middle one's were straighter, and the front legs were held up, like the arms of a praying mantis.

Two other, smaller, specimens, only 7 feet tall, followed it in.

"Who are you?" Amy asked shakily, standing her ground.

The largest creature merely looked at her. It snatched her arm, stretching her high, hauling her up on her tiptoes, her wrist manacled in two bony, chitinous "fingers" that split off the end of the leg. It towered over her. It had her stretched as high as she could go, but she still wasn't level with its head. 

"What are you doing? What do you want?" Amy struggled as it pulled her closer. But it was too strong. 

It bit her arm.

Amy screamed.

The creature chewed, its smaller mandibles working. It dropped her. Amy collapsed, cradling her injured arm. She was bleeding, a quarter-sized divot bitten out of the inside of her forearm. It stung as the air hit it, burned, tears sprang to her eyes.

"Why?"

The creature stopped chewing and spat out the mangled remains of her tracer.

It turned and grabbed Stanley, who'd been cowering near the wall. It picked up the small boy, half its size, and dangled him like a fish. Stanley yelled, and fought, kicking and screaming.

"Leave him alone!" Amy yelled. She lunged at the monster, but one of the others swatted her aside.

She hit the wall with a thump, banging her head. Fortunately the paper cushioned the blow, but not before she heard Stanley scream. She almost threw up. Stanley was so much smaller than she was, a bite the same size on him...

The monster threw the sobbing boy aside and spat out his tracer.

"Why are you doing this?" Amy demanded, crawling over to Stanley. The boy was curled around his arm, sobbing. "We didn't do anything to you!"

"Not yet," the monster said, in English. Amy's eyes popped wide. It had a deep, guttural voice. "We are not yet ready to be found. And you may be of use to us."

Its squared-off antenna twitched, giving off a sound like high speed radio static. The other two monsters exited through the slit. The large one followed, then turned and stared at them.

Amy shivered at that dead-eyed, considering stare. It turned and left.

*

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	12. Chapter 12

"Oh, this is very not good."

"What is it, Doctor?" Rory stared at the wasp-like creatures on the scanner screen. "What are they?"

"Wirrn." The Doctor dashed out of the chopper and sprinted over to the ATV. He jumped inside and snatched up the remote tracer board. He input some instructions and read the screens. With a growl he slapped the sliders to zero and tried again. Nothing.

He whipped out the sonic screwdriver and held it up, scanning. Nothing. He shoved it back in his pocket.

Rory leaned in the door, getting worried, the Colonel and Dutch leaned in beside him. "Doctor, what is it?"

"Rory! Does Amy still have her cell phone?" he demanded.

Rory's eyes lit up with hope. "Yeah, I think so." Rory dug out his phone and eagerly pressed her number. No signal. He almost howled in frustration.

The Doctor wiggled his fingers. "Gimme."

Rory handed it over. "It's the wrong planet, there's no satellites here for it," he complained.

"Oh, we'll just see about that." The Doctor's thumbs flew over the keys typing in a series of commands. "Come on, old girl," he muttered. "Hah! Bars!"

He held the phone to his ear.

"Come on, come on... Amy!"

\----------

Amy jumped when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Sick with hope, she fumbled it out, hand shaking, slick with blood.

"Hello?"

"Amy!" The Doctor's exuberant shout was like angel trumpets in her ear. Her heart leaped with hope.

"Doctor! It bit me!" She stared down in shock at the hole in her arm, still seeping blood.

"What?! Are you all right? No, no. No time now. Just listen, they could detect this call at any minute. They're called Wirrn. They don't need air or water, they do need sunlight. They're vulnerable to electric shock but resistant to stazer fire. Do not under any circumstances let a grub touch you. Their slime will turn you into one of them. Think of it as really aggressive stem cells. Where are you?"

"I'm in a cell, the floor's dirt, but the walls are some sort of paper-concrete."

"Is there anyone with you?"

"Yes. Stanley and Captain..." the signal cut out. Amy stared at the phone. "Doctor! No, no, no..." she stabbed at the buttons with her thumb, the phone had power, but no signal.

"Amy?" Stanley asked shakily, he looked up from his fetal position on the floor. His face was paper white, his eyes the glassy flat shine of shock.

The door bulged, a Wirrn stepped in, antenna twitching. Instinctively, without thinking, Amy threw the phone at it. It bounced off the carapace. He looked at her for a moment then looked down at the phone. It stepped on the cellphone, crushing it into the dirt with one stilt-like leg. It turned and left.

Amy stared at the shattered phone in the dirt, laid her head on her arms, and cried.

\----------

"Amy? Amy!" The Doctor programed the phone again. And buzzed it with the sonic screwdriver.

"What's wrong?" Rory asked, anxiously. Almost not wanting to know.

The Doctor growled, pulled back his hand as if to throw the phone, then stopped himself. He squeezed it tightly, then handed it back to Rory.

"They cut us off."

"Is Amy...?"

"She's all right. She's in a cell with Stanley and Schwillic."

\----------

Amy felt a soft touch on her arm. She looked up to find Captain Schwillic standing beside her, one leg gently touching her arm in concern.

"Right!" she said, staring at the small pink alien. "That's enough of that." She scrubbed the teartracks off her face. "Are you all right?" she asked the tripod.

"I awoke when those things entered the room," he said softly, skin vibrating. "I stayed still, I did not want to attract their attention," he said, dipping down slightly in shame.

"I don't blame you, I wouldn't have either," Amy said, taking the tip of his leg in her hand and squeezing gently. "Why didn't they take your tracer?" she suddenly asked.

"I don't have one. We run a regular straight shot from the spaceport to the farm, and our ship has a transponder, so we're not required to have tracers."

"So there's no way for the Doctor to find us," she stared mournfully at her broken phone in the dirt.

"Maybe there is," Stanley said, hoarsely. He uncurled painfully from his huddle and sat up, still cradling his arm. "I've got another tracer."

"What? How?" Amy demanded. "Why didn't those things take it?"

"It's not activated."

"You think those things can sense them?"

"It's possible. With those antenna they may be able to detect the tracers electromagnetic signature."

"So why do you have two tracers?" Amy asked.

"I'm a tracker tech. I know what all kinds of things can go wrong with a tracer. And I'm out in the wilds a lot looking for lost colonists. It only makes sense to have a backup."

"So, if you have a working tracer, the Doctor can still find us," Amy said.

"Only if we can get somewhere where I can activate it without those things finding us. I don't care to have any more of my anatomy bitten off."

"Speaking of that, let me see your arm," she held out her hand, her own arm still looked raw, but she'd put pressure on it, and it had mostly stopped bleeding.

He held out his little boy fist, slowly, and she sighed in relief to see it wasn't as bad as she thought. The creature had apparently only meant to "disarm" them, not maim them. Stanley had a good chunk out of his forearm, but it wasn't as deep as it could have been. "Wiggle your fingers," she ordered.

He did, grimacing, and it started a new trickle of blood, but at least his fingers moved. "Thank heaven for that." She turned to the tripod, "Schwillic?" she asked, she thought she recognized it as the larger of the two who'd come with them. He bobbed a nod. "Good, can you go see if there's anything to salvage from my phone." She nodded at the crushed cellphone. Schwilic trundled over to start picking over the pieces.

"Stanley," she turned back to him, "give me your sock."

"Huh?" he asked.

Amy sighed in exasperation. "Take off your shoe and give me one of your socks."

Fumbling, still shocky, he did.

She took the sock and used her pen knife to cut off the top of the tube sock. She cut the top section into two rings. Folded one up into a bandage and pressed it to his wound, then slipped the other elasticized ring up over his wrist and onto his arm, using it to hold the bandage in place. "It's not as clean as I'd like, but it'll do."

She placed his hand on top of the tube sock and told him to press. "Hold that down until it stops bleeding."

"Where'd you learn to do that?" he asked, surprised, looking at the neat bandage.

"My boyfriend's a nurse."

She cut a bandage for her own arm then handed the rest of the sock back to him. "Put that in your pocket, we can use it for spare bandages later."

She looked down at the pen knife in her hand, then up at the paper walls.

\----------

"What are you doing?" Rory asked. They'd conferred with Dutch and Tildaith about plans for the morning. Rory had made himself useful by bringing everyone dinner, but now found himself at loose ends again as everyone shut down for the night. He knew he'd never be able to sleep.

The Doctor was sitting on the floor of the ATV with the tracker board in his lap. He had the back off of it and was tracing the various chips and wires and conduits with his long, expressive fingers, muttering to himself almost subsonically.

"Amy's tracer was apparently destroyed. I'm trying to reconfigure this to pick up her life signs without it."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know, Rory. It's not so simple picking up one particular life sign in a countryside teeming with wildlife. And this machine isn't exactly designed for it. It is going to take some major redesigning." He started stripping out one section of chips, checking them and slipping them into a pocket.

Rory watched him putter for a while. Black night pressed against the ATV windows. A soft night breeze sighed past the door. Dutch breathed quietly on the bench on the other side of the cabin. Rory found himself tapping his fingers against his knees.

"Give me something to do!"

His sudden outburst startled the Doctor, who fumbled the chip he was holding and dropped it into the complex workings of the board. He spent several seconds fishing it out, while Rory bit his lip and tried to keep still.

The Doctor slipped the chip into his pocket and looked at Rory.

"Sorry, sorry," Rory said. "But if I don't do something I'll go mad just sitting here, not knowing what's happening to Amy."

"All right," the Doctor said calmly. He soniced down a wire then held the screwdriver out to Rory. "Here, hold this."

Rory rolled his eyes but took the screwdriver. It was giving off a deep, rhythmic oscillation. He could feel it humming in his hand.

When the Doctor just kept puttering, he prompted, "Tell me about the last time you met these Wirrn," He knew the Doctor loved nothing better than to putter and tell tall tales at the same time.

The Doctor looked at him. Then turned his eyes back to the board. He stripped wires, moved conduits, and started talking, quietly, since Dutch was asleep.

"I first met them on a space station, many years ago..."

Rory listened to the drone of the Doctor's voice and the steady hum of the sonic screwdriver in his hand.

He blinked.

Yawned.

Blinked again. And slowly toppled to the side. Asleep.

The sonic screwdriver rolled out of his hand.

The Doctor picked it up and switched it off. "Sorry, Rory," he apologized. He straightened out the younger man and spread one of the emergency blankets over him. "You can be angry at me in the morning."

The Doctor went back to his puttering.

The night breeze sighed outside.

\----------

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If you're enjoying the story, please leave a comment below. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Wirrn" is pronounced "Wyr-en" and you can see the Doctor's first meeting with them in the Classic Fourth Doctor story "Ark in Space."


	13. Chapter 13

" _Those_ are Wirrn?" Colonel Tildaith asked, surprised.

They were all crowded into the control cabin of the chopper, in the early morning light, going over the scans of the Wirrn again, planning their next move.

"You've heard of Wirrn?" the Doctor asked.

"Only the legends. The first spacefarers in Andromeda learned that the best way to find habitable planets was to 'Follow the Wirrn,'" Tildaith said.

"So you followed them to new planets then went to war with them?" the Doctor demanded.

"War?" Tildaith asked, confused. "They had to burn out a few nests when they'd start to prey on the herds, but..." Tildaith shrugged, as if it was nothing.

The Doctor scrubbed his hands over his face, he muttered behind his hands.

"What, Doctor?" Rory asked, not quite catching it.

The Doctor dropped his hands. "The winning side writes the history."

"What does that mean?" Tildaith asked aggressively, as if he was being doubted.

"Nothing," the Doctor waved it away.

"What exactly _are_ Wirrn?" Dutch asked.

"A spaceborn race native to Andromeda. They only visit planets to refuel their air and water, and to breed."

The Doctor typed in some numbers in the chopper tech board. "These are the last coordinates we had for Amy's tracer." The view shifted to a different area of the wheat fields.

"We overflew those coordinates on the way to the harvester," Tildaith said. "We found nothing."

"Then we're going to check them again," the Doctor said implacably.

Rory held up his hands when it looked like the Doctor and Colonel were about to butt heads. "If they're spacefaring, then we need to find where they've landed. If there's nothing at those coordinates," he said, nodding at the screen, "where do we look?" Rory asked.

"South," the Doctor said. He turned to Dutch. "Am I correct in assuming this farm was the largest population south of the city?"

"Yes." The sheriff settled his hands on his hips, the responsibility for the farm had resettled on him since they'd returned.

"And that fertilizer was stolen south of here," the Doctor continued. "The harvester was south of here. All indications point south.

"What we need is a satellite map," the Doctor said, putting his hands in his pockets.

"I can help with that," Tildaith said.

—————

"Right about there," Amy said, drawing an arc with her finger.

They made the first cut on the wall about as wide as Amy's shoulders. Under the smooth top layer, the wall proved to be a heavy sort of paper mache made of pulped wheat stalks.

Each successive cut was smaller and smaller as they had to rip out layer after layer of the heavy fibers. It took them several hours. Fortunately the monsters hadn't returned, but Amy's fingers grew raw and both their arms had started bleeding again.

They were forced to stop periodically and apply pressure to their arms to stop the bleeding, then take turns cutting and pulling. Eventually they were reduced to using one arm each, one person cutting, the other pulling, the strain making their arms burn.

Amy grunted as she ripped loose another layer of the wall. "I'll never joke about someone not being able to fight their way out of a paper bag again," she said as she tossed the strip aside. The wheat stalks felt hard on her abraded fingers.

Eventually they broke through. With joyful, muffled shouts they stabbed through the wall into another chamber, they ripped the last layer of paper free and peered through into the next room.

It was a chamber similar to the one they were in, but dark. Amy sat back on her heels and massaged her forearm. It felt as bulky as Popeye's from all the work.

She looked at the pathetically small hole. It was only about six inches across, the slanting sides of it making it look like a funnel.

"Well," Stanley said, wiping his forehead on his forearm, still clutching the dulled pen knife. "We're not going to be able to get through there."

"I might," Schwillic said. They turned and looked at the small alien. He hadn't been much help, tripod legs weren't made for pinching, but he'd kept the area around them clear, sweeping the shreds of their labors away and camouflaging them by laying them out around the edges of the cell and brushing dirt over the evidence.

Amy looked between the six inch hole and the eight inch tripod. "Are you sure?"

The hole didn't look big enough for even his small body -- he trundled forward and pressed his top against the hole, looking like a cork in a bottle. They watched in surprise as he squashed the dome of his "head" through -- like pushing a marshmallow through a bottleneck. His legs trembled, straining, then he abruptly tumbled forward, legs whipping after him as he fell through the hole into the next room.

Amy put her finger in her mouth and popped it out. "Pop! Goes the weasel!" she sang merrily.

Stanley grinned at her.

Schwillic appeared on the other side of the hole, looking scratched but okay. "I'll reconnoiter and see if I can find us a way out. Wait here."

Amy looked at Stanley and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, we'll do that."

—————

Schwillic pressed his "head" against the slit door of the next cell, parting it just a fraction and surveying the corridor beyond.

There was one Wirrn keeping guard on their cell, standing across the corridor where he could see the slit door.

Schwillic eased back and trundled back over to the hole. He rachetted down and peered inside. Amy's face looked back. "There's one guard. But he's across the hall, he'll see me if I go out. You need to cause a distraction," he vibrated.

Amy thought about it for a minute, then nodded. "Be ready."

Her face disappeared from the hole. Schwillic trundled back to the slit of the cell and leaned against the crack to look.

"Hey! You! Guard!" He heard Amy's voice yell from the next cell. The Wirrn twitched, but stepped forward and stuck its head in the cell. "We need some water in here. We're not going to be of any use to you if we die of thirst."

Schwillic slipped out of the cell, spun down the corridor and nipped into an archway. The room was piled high with wheat stalks, from floor to ceiling. Schwillic did a quick survey, stuck his head back out the door and saw the Wirrn facing the other way, antenna twitching as he apparently sent a message.

Schwillic spun quickly off down the deserted corridor and around the curve.

—————

While Schwillic was gone, Amy and Stanley kept enlarging the hole, in case they needed it to get out. "Keep it tall and narrow," Amy instructed. "so you can sit in front of it again if they come back."

"You really think that will work twice?" Stanley scoffed, doubtfully.

"It can't hurt to try." She grinned. "The Doctor's fond of saying that. All we have to do is survive long enough for him to find us."

"The dweeb in the bow tie?" Stanley scoffed.

"Hey!" She glared at him, but couldn't contradict him. "Just keep digging."

—————

Schwillic was gone for a long time. They spent the time widening and trimming the hole, tense and ready to jump in front of it at any minute if a Wirrn pushed into the room. But it kept them occupied and not thinking about their predicament. The Wirrn never did bring them any water, Amy didn't know if it was thirst that bothered her more, or the thought that Schwillic may have been caught.

She worried, and worked, Stanley silent beside her. The boy held up his end of the work, but the serious look on his freckled face showed he harbored the same worries and hopes.

Was the tripod caught? Was that why he hadn't returned? Had he managed to find a way out and run for it? If he had, would he bring help? Were the Wirrn just going to leave them here to rot?

Or did they have something else planned?

Amy thought she'd go mad. "So, you got a girlfriend?" she finally asked, just to have something else to think about.

—————

A pink tentacle slipped through the gap in the wall and touched Amy's hand. She almost jumped out of her skin. She'd been caught up in one of Stanley's stories about a pair of colonists he'd helped locate in a swamp, the two lovers had gone out punting without telling anyone. The family had freaked out when they found their son's shirt floating past the home dock in the current and realized he'd been missing all day.

It ended up the two had just gone skinny-dipping in an isolated cove. When Stanley and his crew found them, their tracers had been the only thing on them.

"Oh, you're bad!" Amy laughed. The freckle-faced boy grinned at her with teenage naughtiness, and Amy felt the touch on her hand.

She jumped and bit back a shriek. She glanced toward the door-slit, but apparently their guard hadn't heard.

She knelt and looked into the tall hole they'd dug and found Schwillic on the other side.

"Come on," the tripod said. "I found us a place to hide, and some communications equipment. If one of you can figure it out, we may be able to call for help."

"That's great!" Amy said.

"If it's human communications equipment, I should be able to work it," Stanley said, immodestly.

"Any idea how to get rid of the guard?" Amy asked.

"Yes, I've got a plan." He held up a tentacle when Stanley knelt down to crawl through the hole. "Use the main door," he instructed. "When the guard leaves, run out and go right. The corridor is curved, stop beyond the curve. I'll catch you up." He disappeared from the hole and Amy folded her pen knife shut, put it in her pocket, stood up, brushed herself off, and tiptoed over to the slit, Stanley right behind her.

There was a piercing whistle from outside, seeming to come from the left. There was the shuffling, clicking sound of a Wirrn walking. Amy pressed her eye to the slit just in time to see the guard's abdomen waver off down the hall.

She stuck her head out of the slit and watched the Wirrn walk to an archway down the corridor, it peered inside, and suddenly there was a loud "shooshing" sound and he was engulfed in a wave of falling wheat.

He was quickly buried under the wheatslide, thrashing and chittering in annoyance, unable to see or stand. Schwillic body-surfed down the hill of wheat and landed on all three legs, running.

Amy grinned, turned, and ran.

—————

Schwillic led them through dim, deserted corridors, carefully checking each intersection for Wirrn.

"Where are they?" Amy asked.

Schwillic pointed a leg. "Most of them are off that way," he said, pointing from the direction they'd come from. "I only saw a few through here, checking the bins."

"What bins?" Stanley asked.

They turned a corner into a long hallway. One side of the corridor was lined with a long row of three foot tall open-sided bins. Each bin had a wide tube leading down into it, a few feet in diameter.

"What are those for?" Amy asked. "Wheat storage?"

Schwillic shrugged. "I don't know, I couldn't see in. But they're everywhere."

Stanley looked in the nearest bin, it was round, looking like half a large tube had been cut off at an angle. It was clean inside, whitewashed and apparently enameled. "Well, if a Wirrn does come along, at least we'll have someplace to hide," he said.

They followed Schwillic down the long hallway of empty bins, eyes and ears straining for any sounds of pursuit. Amy heard a weird sort of wet rustling. She stopped, turned her head to try to orient on the sound. There was nothing here but them.

She saw something glistening in one of the bins.

Amy looked in the nearest cubicle. There was a large round thing in it, translucent, milky white, smooth and pliable. About four feet in diameter.

It looked like an egg sac.

There was something in it, dimly seen through the membrane. A boy. Curled up in the fetal position. Something in the egg sac writhed.

It wasn't the boy. He was dead.

Amy turned away. She felt vomit spurt up the back of her throat. She swallowed convulsively. Tears smarted her eyes, she blinked them back. She looked down the long line of cubicles.

Each one held an egg sac.

She turned to the others, "I think I know what _use_ they have for us."

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If you're enjoying the story, please leave a comment below. 


	14. Chapter 14

"What is it? What's in there?" Schwillic asked.

Stanley picked him up and held him over the edge of the bin so he could see.

The tripod paled to a sickly, blue-gray.

"Do you recognize him?" Stanley asked.

"Yes," the tripod said in a shaky voice. "His name was Joshua, from the farm. He was a good man." The tripod wiggled uncomfortably in the boy's hands and Stanley set him down.

"Right," Amy said. She tore her eyes from the pallid grey, grublike form that brushed against the inside of the sac. She breathed heavily through her nose, pushing down her nausea, fortunately all she smelled was good clean paper and dirt. She closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer for all the lost farmers. "I think it's time we got out of here."

"Follow me," Schwillic said. He twirled off rather unsteadily down the corridor. His strength and normal pink color returned with his resolve. Amy felt determination form in her own gut.

She looked down the long line of bins that lined the hallway. Unthinking, she took Stanley's little-boy hand in hers. Gripping tightly.

"Come on."

—————

The air rumbled with a subsonic hum.

Rory stuck his head out of the chopper just in time to see a huge cargo hauler float in over the farm's airport.

Tildaith leaned over and flipped on the communications channel. They heard the temporary air traffic controller in the tower warn off the vessel. "There has been an incident here. The farm is closed until further notice, please returned to your berth at the spaceport."

"That tears it," Dutch said. "It'll be all over the net in an hour, and we'll be crawling with the media."

They watched as the bulky, black cargo hauler turned around in a huge sweeping curve, no doubt taking pictures all the while.

"Whatever we're going to do, we'd better do it now," Dutch said.

—————

"Be quiet," Schwillic warned them. He pointed around the corner to a well lit archway down the hall. This was a smaller corridor than most, the walls were bare, with no bins, and it had a deserted feel, like a maintenance corridor. "The communications equipment is through there, but we have to go through the factory room to get to it."

"Factory room?" Amy asked. The Wirrn didn't seem like the industrial type.

The tripod shrugged. "The Wirrn are making something. I don't know what. But there are a bunch of disused storage rooms beyond. If we can get some of the communications equipment, we can barricade ourselves into one of them and call for help."

"Doesn't sound like much of a plan," Stanley commented.

"It's not my favorite either," Amy admitted.

"It's the best I could do," Schwillic said. "We appear to be underground, the only way out is if you can fly. At least this way we have some chance of holding them off until help arrives. The storage rooms are the deepest part, the walls are stone, not paper. It's better than waiting in the cell until they decide to come for us."

Amy shivered, looking back over her shoulder. "You're right about that."

"I thought we were just going to find a stockpile of equipment, I didn't know there'd be Wirrn around," Stanley said quietly. He looked at Amy. "I can't just call for help, they'll detect it. I don't know what their range is, but it's got to be longer than two rooms."

"So what do you suggest?" Amy asked.

He thought about it, he scrubbed his fingers through his red hair, his eyes darting around, keeping a lookout. "If they have the right kind of equipment, I can cobble together a quick blurt, a fast, broadband SOS to get someone's attention. It'll be too fast for the Wirrn to pinpoint it. I can put it on an irregular cycle, so it might get off a couple more blurts before the Wirrn find it and destroy it. But we're not going to want to be anywhere in the vicinity when it goes off."

"Can you really do that?" Amy asked, looking at his little 12 year old face.

He nodded. "It's fairly simple, and doesn't take any fancy equipment. As long as they have the basics it should work."

Amy inhaled. "Okay..." she drawled. She looked down the corridor again.

"So how do we get past them?" Stanley asked.

"Leave that to me," Schwillic said. "Just be ready to move." He trundled off down the corridor and stopped at the edge of the lit doorway. Stanley and Amy tiptoed after him.

—————

The room was huge, easily a hundred by thirty feet. A wide archway in the opposite wall seemed to be the main entrance. Machines littered the space, their linkages looked as if they'd been severed, then reconnected. Electrical lights were strung haphazardly all around the room making it bright as day, huge spools of wire were stacked along the nearest wall.

Amy, Stanley and Schwillic nipped through the door and slunk behind the spools for cover. Fortunately they were industrial size spools, six feet tall and coiled with cable.

The middle of the room was taken up with a large machine, it looked like something used at airports to process luggage -- hoppers fed into one end, and a conveyor belt carrying 50-pound cloth fertilizer bags came out the other.

Wirrn were busy conveying the bags and packing them in floor-to-ceiling squares against the far end wall. Other Wirrn were chewing wheat stalks and using the pulp to build up walls around the completed sections of fertilizer bags, sealing them into cells.

"Why are they doing that?" Amy whispered. The chugging of the machine covered their conversation.

"Maybe to keep them dry and preserve them until they're needed," Stanley offered quietly. "Look!"

He pointed to where a Wirrn was programming the large fertilizer machine. It was the only Wirrn in the room that was wearing clothes. It had the tattered remains of a coverall stretched across its carapace, stiff insect hairs poked through the material as if they'd grown there. The words "AAA Fertilizer, Inc." were embroidered across the back.

Stanley leaned out from behind the spools to get a better look at what the Wirrn was doing. Amy snatched him back by the back of his shirt. "Wha...?" She clapped her hand over his mouth when he started to protest and pointed. He went still.

The big Wirrn, the one that had bitten their tracers out, was stalking through the fertilizer factory. In the confines of their cell they hadn't realized just how big he was. He stood head and shoulders over any other Wirrn in the room, and had an extra bulkiness the others lacked, like a mature bull among yearlings.

Stanley sank back against Amy.

The big Wirrn stopped by the fertilizer tech and the smaller Wirrn picked up a pouch that looked like it was made from the same cloth as the fertilizer bags.

He seemed to be demonstrating something.

He threw the small plump bag to the floor where it hit and exploded with a familiar "Whumph!" Smoke boiled up out of the bag. Amy gasped. She clapped her hand over her mouth and nose and looked at Stanley. He held his hand over his own mouth.

They quickly scuttled away behind the wire spools, keeping low -- but hurrying away from the gas which now wreathed the Wirrn. The Wirrn, unconcerned, were chatting away with their staticy antenna sounds.

Schwillic led them to a door in the near end wall. Amy and Stanley took advantage of the cloud cover and slipped around the doorway into the next room. This room was deserted -- nothing more than a spare storeroom, empty, waiting for fertilizer bags no doubt. They scurried through to the next room, gasping for air when they could no longer hold their breaths.

The air here was clear, smelling of stone and electronics. The room was scattered with communications equipment and tools on several long tables.

"This is more like it!" Stanley whispered, rushing forward eagerly to see what he could salvage.

Amy and Schwillic kept a look out by the door.

"Huh! This is weird," Stanley whispered a few minutes later.

Amy was pulled around by that familiar tone, she'd heard the Doctor say much the same thing on many occasions.

"What?" she asked, aware that there were Wirrn just a few doors away.

Stanley gestured to a round, silvery ball in the center of the workbench. One half of it was open, showing the components inside.

"They're building a communications satellite," Stanley said, waving at it, mystified.

Amy frowned. "How could they do that?"

Schwillic, who'd been helping her keep watch, suddenly leaned sideways as if he'd seen something.

He trundled quickly to the other end of the room, and disappeared sideways into the wall.

Amy jumped, startled, and ran over to the last place she'd seen him.

The end of the room was actually "L" shaped. The color of the walls blended so perfectly she hadn't been able to tell from the doorway. Stanley followed her.

They turned the corner to find a girl working at a table in the smaller section. Electronic components were strewn all around, tools and a smoking soldering iron stood near to hand. A door opened to the corridor behind her. Her back was to them.

Schwillic ran toward her eagerly. "Emerlee!"

The girl turned from the machine she was working on. Schwillic jump back with a squeak.

She had dusky, olive skin, and long, curly, chestnut hair. She would've been a beauty as a grown-up woman. But the left side of her face was covered in green pustules, and her skull had been distorted to support a huge, insectoid eye.

Schwillic whimpered. Stanley stared in shock.

Stanley grabbed Amy's arm and pulled her backward toward the door.

Amy shook him off. "Are you still in there?" she asked calmly, more calmly than she felt. She'd seen many things on her travels with the Doctor and knew that monsters weren't always what they appeared.

The girl regarded her calmly, as if considering the question. "Yes," she said slowly.

"Can you tell me what's going on here?" Amy carefully waved at the rest of the workroom, not wanting to disturb the girl's trancelike tranquility.

"We're building a communicator."

"To communicate what?" Amy asked gently.

"To gather the swarm." The girl's voice changed, becoming deeper, more resonant, a Wirrn voice. "To come breed." The girl lunged at Amy, stretching out a grublike pseudopod of a hand.

Amy leaped back, away from the slime-covered hand. She turned and ran out of the room after the sprinting Stanley and Schwillic.

—————

They fled out into the corridor, and ran directly into a Wirrn. A normal sized Wirrn, Amy noticed gratefully as she bounced back off its hard body, insect hairs prickling her arms and branchy legs scraping against her as she rebounded off of it.

Stanley screamed. The giant insect stared down at him with its huge compound eyes. Its proboscis started to smoke.

Amy stared in horror as wreathing grey tendrils of gas leaked out from between the knobby sections. Before they could react, it blew a wave of smoke at Stanley. The boy stumbled and fell, unconscious.

Amy whipped off a shoe and slammed the insect in the face, knocking its proboscis sideways, stunning it. The Wirrn stumbled. Amy picked up Stanley and tossed him over her shoulder, for once grateful for her size. She scooped up Schwillic with the other hand, turned, and ran for her life.

*

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	15. Chapter 15

Amy hunkered down in one of the empty egg cubicles, keeping as low as possible against the front wall as a group of angry Wirrn stalked past on long legs. She held Schwillic in the crook of one arm, and an unconscious Stanley lay across her knees.

Schwillic vibrated against her ribs, and a piercing whistle drew the Wirrn off around the next corner.

"How did you do that?" Amy whispered.

"Ventriloquism. I was always good at it as a child," he vibrated back softly. "How's Stanley?"

"I think he's okay." The boy gave a groan right on cue. Amy grinned. She jogged her knee, she was getting a cramp. "Stanley," she whispered fiercely. "Wake up, I can't keep carting you around like a sack of grain."

He pushed himself up and scrubbed at his eyes. "What happened?" He suddenly remembered and his head whipped around wildly, looking for Wirrn.

"We got away," Amy said. "But I don't know for how long. They're looking for us."

"So what now?" Stanley asked.

"We get out," Amy said resolutely. "Schwillic, you said you found the exit. Show us."

"We'll never get out that way," Schwillic protested.

"Never say never," Amy said. "We haven't got any choice."

—————

They ran.

It had started out so well. But it seemed like no matter how many Wirrn they dodged, or how many Schwillic fooled into going another direction, there were always more Wirrn around the next corner.

Finally they just stopped trying and ran, sprinting to keep ahead of the angrily buzzing, long-legged insects.

They ran out into a huge open space.

Horses fled in every direction.

Amy stumbled to a halt and stared, open-mouthed. The dirt floor covered several acres and a herd of horses roamed free, a few deer and a couple of bison mixed in.

She looked up. Rank upon rank of egg cubicles, thousands of them, their tubes shining like Christmas lights, rose up in tiers to the beehive-like opening twenty stories above their heads. Blue sky showed through the opening, morning sunlight flooded the atrium.

Wirrn flew in and out of the hive above them, one slowly descended carrying a somnolent deer which it deposited on the floor at the far end of the herd. There was no way up to that opening, not without wings.

"Come on!" Stanley grabbed her hand and yanked her into a massive pile of hay near the wall. Schwillic burrowed in beside them and Wirrn poured out of the corridor behind them, searching.

—————

The pilot landed the chopper in the wheat field at Amy's last coordinates. The platoon of Marines piled out first -- guns ready, establishing a perimeter. Rory and the Doctor, Dutch and the Colonel piled out after them. They spread out to see what they could find.

Wheat fields, Rory thought, standing hip high in the waving stalks. He was getting heartily sick of wheat fields. 

"Over here!" One of the Marines raised a hand, beckoning.

They trotted over to find a gap in the wheat, and what looked like a freshly dug grave.

"Oh my God!" Rory fell to his knees, his heart stopped in his chest. "Amy!"

He felt the Doctor's hand on his shoulder. "Steady on, Rory."

"But, Doctor!"

The Doctor knelt and ran his long fingers through the loamy soil at the edge of the mound. "Dutch!" he yelled over his shoulder.

The sheriff trotted over. "Scan that!" The Doctor pointed.

Dutch unlimbered his portable scanner and waved it over the site. Rory's heart beat desperately in his chest. Blue sky and birdsong faded behind the staticy numbness in his head, a sense of emptiness where Amy should be.

"Nothing," the young blonde sheriff said. He adjusted some controls. "Just dirt, no electromagnetic signature, no anomalous mass, no heat signature. Just a pile of fresh dirt."

Rory breathed out in a whoosh, bending forward like a man released from hell.

"Here!" another Marine yelled from the other side of the chopper. They trotted around, batting aside the wheat. It wasn't easy to run in a field of wheat, especially for the short Feyanorans. They found another pile of freshly dug earth.

"And I bet if we kept searching, we'll find another," the Doctor said.

They did.

The Doctor nodded, peering at the mound of dirt they'd found some distance from the chopper and the first two.

"Thought so. That's why you couldn't find them Colonel, why they dropped off your scans, they buried themselves. Probably couldn't fly fast enough to get away otherwise. Perfect natural camouflage."

"That wouldn't have stopped electromagnetic scans," Tildaith pointed out.

"No, but I'm betting they could have countered any scans with those antenna of theirs. They don't just receive signals, they send them too, how else do you think they communicate in space?"

"The more I hear about these creatures the less I like them," Dutch complained.

"Oh, they're magnificent creatures," the Doctor said jovially, rocking back and forth on his heels. He saw the disbelieving looks Rory, Dutch, and Tildaith were giving him. "What they're _doing_ is wrong," he reassured them. "But as a lifeform they are fascinating."

"Just ignore him," Rory said, turning to the other men. "He gets like this sometimes."

"Thanks heaps, Rory," the Doctor said sarcastically.

"Well, you do."

"If the two of you are done bickering," Tildaith said. "We've still got 300 people missing and a hostile alien force on our hands. If you're satisfied that your friend is not here, then we need to continue the search."

"Quite right!" the Doctor said, sticking a finger in the air. He strode off back to the chopper.

Dutch and Rory followed. "Is he really always like this?" Dutch asked in sympathy.

"Yeah," Rory said.

Tildaith ordered his Marines back into the chopper and climbed aboard himself. He found the Doctor hunkered down at the small tech station, his knees poking up like an adult in a child's school chair.

"What about this?" The Doctor turned the monitor toward the Colonel. It showed a round, golden-gray dome in the middle of the sea of wheat. The color blended so perfectly that it was only the early morning shadow that gave it away.

As they watched the satellite feed, a tiny figure, like a bee, darted up out of the hole in the center of the mound.

—————

They were attacked by a flying squad of three Wirrn out on patrol before they reached the hive.

"Jam them!" the Doctor yelled over the scream of machine-gun fire from the turrets. He saw the communications officer's fingers move over his board as he instinctively obeyed, just as the chopper deformed its rotors and spun through a 360 degree roll. He and Rory grabbed for handholds as the straps meant for people half their size strained to keep them in their seats.

The maneuver flung off two of the Wirrn, which had latched onto its hull, and they were blasted to pieces by the turret gunners.

The third Wirrn actually managed to hold on and pried the side door open. It stuck its head in, one leg snatching at the Marine nearest to it. Its proboscis started smoking.

"Gas!"the Doctor yelled.

Colonel Tildaith, closest to the door, calmly reached up, jammed his pistol in the monster's neck and blew its head half off its neck.

The proboscis stopped smoking. The dangling head, dragged down by the weight of the body, slid down the gap in the door, and then slipped out, falling.

Tildaith calmly holstered his weapon, and wiped his ichor-coated hands on a black handkerchief. "Get these doors open and air this gas out of here," he ordered calmly.

Rory stared at the Doctor wide-eyed. He'd never seen a 12 year old kill a monster before.

The Doctor looked grim. But he helped open the doors on his side.

—————

"Lieutenant, did you manage to jam them?" Tildaith asked, looming over the pilot and communications officer in the cockpit.

"Yes sir," the lean, dark-skinned boy replied. "But I don't know if they manage to get off a message before that."

Tildaith considered. "Right, this is no longer a search and rescue, it is now a military operation. Pilot, turn us around and take us back to the farm."

Rory started to protest.

Tildaith held up a hand. "I'm not abandoning your friends. But I will not risk everything on them being able to pull down this one chopper. We’re the only ones who know what is going on. We need backup, firepower, and a plan."

Rory grit his teeth.

The Doctor said nothing.

—————

"Doctor, this is taking too long!" Rory said as the two of them stalked over the tarmac toward the sheriff's ATV. Rory felt like hell, he was gritty with wheat chaff, sticky from fear sweat, worn out from worrying, and he wanted a shower and Amy. Not necessarily in that order.

"I know, Rory." The Doctor had a heavy-jawed look about him that spoke ill for anyone who got in his way. "Tildaith has a point. We can't risk everything on the Wirrn managing to wipe out everyone who knows about them. That's what they were trying to do with that trap at the harvester. But we need to start moving on this."

The Doctor climbed into the ATV and immediately went to the back wall, opening storage panels one after the other. He kept talking, "There's a better than even chance that Amy is in that hive. And it would be foolish to rush in and confront an entire hive of Wirrn without backup. But that hive suggests the Wirrn are working to a plan. That's not something they built in a hurry. Yet they've managed to keep it secret until now.

"But this," he waved his hand at the deserted farm around them, still searching. "This suggests they're getting ready to act. They're not hiding any more and that is a cause for worry."

He found what he was looking for. He turned, holding a heavy, blocky pistol in his hand. He checked the magazine, chambered a round, and set the safety with a familiarity Rory wouldn't have expected. He turned it around and handed it to Rory butt first.

Rory stared at him in frightened amazement. "You're giving me a gun?" He took it tentatively.

The Doctor gave him a heavy, weary look. "As much as I don't like them, I like the idea of losing my friends even less."

*

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	16. Chapter 16

"You think it's that serious?" Rory asked.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor said, running his hands through his hair. "The Wirrn breed very quickly, and if they are using humans as hosts, it means they'll gain technology and local knowledge very quickly."

"What?!" Rory exclaimed. "You never said anything about that!" He resolutely shoved the pistol into the back waistband of his jeans.

The Doctor gave him a sheepish look. "I didn't want to worry you."

"Is there anything _else_ you don't want to worry me about?" Rory glared.

"No. I'll give Tildaith an hour to write his reports and call in his backup. But if he isn't ready to move by then, you and I will take the Tardis and go get Amy out of that hive ourselves."

Rory nodded. "That's more like it."

—————

Amy lay still, barely daring to breathe. The hay was heavy and itchy all around her, poking her everywhere. Sometimes she wondered why she kept clinging to her miniskirts. A pair of jeans would be great right now.

She, Stanley, and Schwillic had borrowed their way back deep into the huge drift of hay. She couldn't see them. She couldn't see anything but her hands in front of her nose, trying to create a pocket to breathe in and filter out the chaff so she wouldn't sneeze.

But she felt Stanley's sneaker touching her ankle, and Schwillic was a pulsing warmth beside her hip.

She strained her ears to hear beyond the insulating hay.

The hay had shifted a few times as if Wirrn had poked at it, or landed on it, searching. But they'd burrowed deep.

The hive was still throbbing with angry activity. She lay her head on her hands and prepared to wait it out.

—————

Forty-five minutes later, Tildaith found them at the other ATV. The Doctor and Rory were talking to Clarke, the forensics expert. Clarke's team had finished collecting their evidence and he'd sent them on to town. He was packing up his ATV lab.

"Thank you, Doctor, for that sample you gave me," he said, as he lugged a metal briefcase into the ATV and locked it into its cubbyhole above the lab bench. "Between that, and the samples we collected here, we were able to narrow down the time frame. From what we can tell, with that and other evidence, the farmers were originally gassed at about 8 a.m. yesterday. Twenty-six hours ago." His curly-haired, cheerful face went grave, knowing that the longer it took to find them, the less chance there was.

"While you were gone, we sent out volunteers to search a widening spiral around the farm on skids," he waved toward the side of the tarmac. Rory turned and saw a line of flatbottomed hoverbikes parked at the edge of the field.

"They found nothing," Clarke said, stuffing his hands in his tweed pockets. He shook his head. "It was a thorough job these Wirrn did. There was no trace of the farmers. Only a few empty fertilizer bags dropped in the field showed anyone had been working here at all." He shrugged.

He looked around the farm. Most of the searchers were gone now. The catering ATV had left, and the tarmac was practically deserted. It was too quiet. The wind ruffled his curls and he shook his head irritably.

The look of mature worry on his 12 year old face was very disconcerting to Rory. Even now, he still hadn't gotten used to the Feyanorans. "Why are you still here?" he asked.

Clarke came out of his introspection and shut the ATV hatch behind him. He waved a hand at a folding chair and a briefcase that sat outside under the awning that stretched from the roof of the ATV. The table with all the equipment had already been stowed away.

"I'm just hanging around, waiting for the inevitable influx of reporters," Clarke admitted. "Jeff's up at the house going through the paperwork, trying to find out who's next in line for ownership of the farm. We've already transmitted a list of next of kin to Janine to notify. Her staff are taking care of that." The boy turned to the Doctor. "Is there any likelihood we'll find survivors?" he asked. "You seem to be the expert on these creatures."

"I'd quite like an answer to that myself," Tildaith said. Colonel Tildaith and Dutch walked up to join them. The Colonel was back in "Man in Black" mode, Rory noticed. Complete with black sunglasses.

The Doctor turned to the two officers, his own young face serious. "With the timeline Clarke has given me, I'd say we have less than three days before the Wirrn are supplemented with a new batch of fully pupated, technologically advanced Wirrn hatched from the farmers."

Dutch went green. "Hatched from the farmers?" he asked in a wavering voice, sounding as if he was swallowing bile.

The Doctor nodded grimly. "Wirrn normally lay their eggs in herbivores. But the ones I met had learned they could absorb knowledge with the body when using humans. I had hoped none of the other Wirrn had learned that nasty trick. But it looks like that was a vain hope."

"You seem very sure all the farmers are dead," Tildaith said.

The Doctor shrugged unhappily. "I would love to be wrong. But I doubt it."

Tildaith sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses. "I've called for reinforcements and Sheriff Anderson has agreed to wait here for them and bring them up to speed when they arrive." Dutch nodded. This new knowledge had brought out the burly warrior in him. He crossed his arms, Rory's eyes were drawn to the military tattoo on his forearm.

"My soldiers are willing to fight and brave the hive to get your friend out of there," Tildaith said. "But I need some reassurance that it's not a wasted effort."

The Doctor nodded and picked up Stanley's tracker board that he'd modified the night before. He patted it. "If you can get me close enough. I can locate her with this. I can also scan to see if there are any other survivors."

Tildaith nodded. "How close is close enough?"

"Does your chopper have a stealth mode?" the Doctor asked.

Tildaith nodded.

"Then I suggest you use it," the Doctor said.

—————

The hive had gone quiet.

The hay pressed down on Amy with a heavy, muffling, weight. Her nose was caked with the sweet, dry smell of hay dust. She'd murder a drink of water about now. Carefully, quietly, Amy wiggled her way to the edge of the massive haystack. She could feel Schwillic tunnelling his way through beside her, and she wasn't sure, but she thought Stanley was following along in her wake.

And she had hay down her shirt. Marvelous. She rolled her eyes and kept going.

She dug her way through the last screen of grasses at the edge of the mammoth pile and poked her nose out.

There was a black, branchy Wirrn foot right in front of her.

She froze.

Slowly, carefully, her eyes traced upward over the stilt-like legs, the heavy green abdomen, the thorax, and finally to the face.

It was looking down at her with a curious expression.

"Hi," she said lamely, her heart about to leap out of her chest.

This was the largest Wirrn she'd seen next to the one who'd bitten her. Of course, that could just be the perspective. But where that one looked like a powerful, angry old warrior, this one looked... softer.

She realized that was a funny thing to think about a creature with an exoskeleton. But it was true.

Then she noticed it was leading two horses, one insectoid hand in the mane of each.

The horses lowered their heads to nibble at the hay.

"You can come out," the Wirrn said. "They're gone."

*

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	17. Chapter 17

This end of the hay pile debouched into a long low overhang, like one of those caves that cliff dwellers build their cities in, only smaller. There was a long, troughlike pond of water in the floor against the back wall, where the horses were drinking.

Water! She'd never fully realized the importance of water before.

She looked up leerily at the Wirrn above her. He looked at her a moment, then tugged at the horses' manes and drew them away from the hay. Keeping an eye on him she scrambled out of the hay. He watched her, but did nothing.

She had hay sticking out everywhere, her hair, her shirt, her hose. She must look like a startled scarecrow.

Backing away, keeping an eye on the Wirrn and on the atrium opening beyond him for any of his friends, she sidled over to the pond. Schwillic had emerged beside her and was scuttling along the base of the wall, keeping his "back" to it. Stanley was apparently waiting in the hay to see what happened.

Amy knelt down and scooped up a handful of water, still watching, she raised it to her mouth, then stopped. What if it was drugged? These Wirrn were known to gas people, drugs wouldn't be beyond them.

Her throat ached, her caked nose twitched at the smell of fresh water. She swallowed dryly. The water dribbled away between her fingers as she thought.

A pair of horses stood beyond her, farther down the pond, slurping greedily. It didn't seem to be affecting them. They weren't sleepy or slow, and they'd fled fast enough when she'd burst into the hive unexpectedly.

She noticed the horses looked young. Two year olds by the look of them, horses, but not fully mature. She looked out over the rest of the herd, beyond the shade of the overhang, and realized all the horses looked young. But the few buffalo and deer didn't.

Of course, the horses were Earth livestock, they'd probably been adapted just like the Feyanorans. The buffalo and deer must be local.

Shaking the speculation out of her head, her eyes snapped back to the Wirrn. He wasn't paying any attention to her, tending to another horse. He'd let the first horses go, and they were now snuffling at the hay pile again, shoving at each other for the best treats.

She shrugged. She scooped up another handful of water and tasted it. Fresh, sweet, and even cold. She swallowed it down and scrubbed her wet hand over her face. She dipped up some more and drank until she was satisfied. She turned to find Schwillic standing guard beside her.

Reassured, she turned to the pond and splashed water on her face, scrubbing off the dirt and hay, and sluiced water over her hands and forearms, careful to keep her bandage dry.

Feeling much more human, she stood up, and found Stanley had joined them. She kept an eye on the Wirrn, and any possible guards, while Stanley drank and cleaned up. She absently brushed the hay off.

She heard a splash and turned just in time to see Schwillic sink in the water, do a quick spin, and climb back out, looking much pinker, a bit plumper, and clean.

"Stay behind me," Amy whispered to them, then cautiously approached the Wirrn. She ducked her head to see out into the atrium beyond, where a few Wirrn flew around tending the egg cells.

—

The Wirrn didn't seem disturbed by their presence. And he hadn't called for the guards. He wasn't ignoring them, just getting on with his work.

Amy nerved herself up and stalked up to him. She kept deep in the shadow of the overhang, where no searching Wirrn would easily see her. "What are the horses for?"

The Wirrn turned from where it was studying the leg of a limping horse. "Breeding," he said.

"I thought that's why you kidnapped the humans?" Amy said, crossing her arms belligerently. It was easier to be brave when she was annoyed. And she still remembered being picked up and dangled like a helpless worm. This Wirrn didn't look as aggressive, but it was still a foot and a half taller than her, with huge insectoid eyes.

"Not everyone agrees with the Swarm leader's plans," it said calmly. "Some of us are uncomfortable laying our eggs in another sentient species. I convinced the Swarm leader that a control group of the human's herbivores would allow the more reluctant to breed in the traditional manner, as well as provide a control group to compare with the human breeding." He waved one long foreleg at the atrium. Amy's eyes followed the sweep of his chitinous "arm" and noticed that all the egg cells on the ground-level were three times larger than all the cells tiered above them. Large enough for a horse. In fact, the alcove she was standing in seemed to be a section where the lowest tiers of egg cells had been removed, or never built, to provide a natural control area for the horses, with the water and hay.

Her eye was drawn to activity on the other end of the hive floor, acres away. A few Wirrn were crouched there, over something, apparently feeding, the dirt was stained rusty red. An abattoir. The horses weren't just for breeding.

"I thought you lot didn't need food or water?" she asked.

"All things that develop in a terrestrial sphere need food and water to grow and heal themselves. We have developed to be very efficient, and can go for long periods between planets. But, all things need sustenance. Does it disturb you?"

Amy started to nod, then her eyes fell on one of the bison. She enjoyed a good hamburger as well as the next person. She swallowed back her retort.

Stanley poked her in the kidney. She jumped. "What?" She half spun, and glared at him.

"You can understand what he's saying?" he asked, still keeping her larger bulk between him and the Wirrn, out of arm's reach.

"Yes!" she answered, peeved. She rubbed her back.

"How?"

Amy sighed. "It's a trick the Doctor taught me."

"So, now you're _friends_ with him?" the teen asked incredulously.

"No!" Amy exclaimed, indignantly. "Yes," she said. "I don't know!" She scrubbed a hand over her face. "He doesn't seem as bad as the rest."

"Not bad!" the boy drew himself up to his full four and a half feet of height, pointing. "He's _killing_ people, and turning them into, _them_!"

He whirled on the Wirrn, "Why are you _doing_ this?" the boy cried.

The Wirrn cocked his head, and wiggled his antenna, not understanding.

"He wants to know why you're doing this," Amy said. Stanley started to say something else, but Schwillic stomped on his foot. The boy glared down at the tripod, but kept his silence.

The Wirrn answered calmly. "Not all of us agree with the swarm leader. But he is very old, he has survived much longer than any of us here. The size of his years gives weight to his words."

"Not to mention the size of his _size_ ," Amy said.

"Yes," the Wirrn answered. "Not many Wirrn live to gain his stature. His ideas are radical, but he is the swarm leader. Many follow him in the hopes of gaining new breeding grounds. In the dream of stability, of a new migration rather than the endless wandering that has been our lot since humans came to Andromeda.

"I see no need for conflict, space is vast and even humans cannot be everywhere. I bear no ill will. But then, I was not born of a soldier on a battlefield. Many hold that to be the swarmleader's strength, his knowledge of humans and war. And they want such borrowed skill for themselves."

"But... Farmers? They don't know anything about war!" Amy protested, swinging an arm at the thousands of egg cells around them.

"They know technology. They know what humans know. And they know how to hold the land. Even I see value in the idea of being able to have a stable source of food and herbivores at the end of a long migration. To not have to rely on chance that there will be suitable herds on a planet.

"To be able to return to a world of long established hives with pure springs and flourishing herds of sweet herbivores. As it was in the old days.

"Even I am not immune to such a dream. But while I believe there are worlds enough for all, that we can once again rebuild in peace what we once had, the swarm leader promises such things _today_. If he believes it must be taken and aggressively held against the humans, who can blame him?

"Too often have we been driven out. Many are tired of it and willing to try something radical and new for their dreams."

"But you don't share those dreams?" Amy asked.

"I do. But I do not see how peace can come from war. I bear you no ill will. I will not hamper you. But I cannot defy the swarm leader. War within or war without is still war. I want only peace and life. That does not come through conflict."

Amy smiled. "There was once a human who thought like you do. His name was Gandhi, he changed my world through peace. I hope you can do the same, for all our sakes.

"We'll go," Amy said, backing away. "We don't want to cause you any trouble, we just want to get out." Amy turned and gathered up Stanley and Schwillic with a gesture. Stanley was gaping at her.

"I never heard of Gandhi," he said as they ran.

"Yeah, well, it was before your time."

—

They ducked around the end of the horse alcove and nipped into a corridor before any of the flying Wirrn could see them.

—

They were finally getting something done, Rory thought with satisfaction.

He watched as the Marines checked their weapons and armor. He reached behind him and made sure the gun was still tucked in the waistband of his jeans.

He turned on the tarmac and watched the chopper blades deploy. He'd been in the ship the last time and hadn't been able to see them, they'd been powered down every other time.

The stubby "projectors" looked like the stubs left after a regular helicopter's blades broke off. Just four short "ends" on a rotor above the bulbous craft.

It gave the helicopter an odd, clumpy appearance, like a fly with its wings torn off. Yet the shimmer of the forcefields, in use, like now, gave it the shimmering, shifting appearance of a controlled borealis, as if it had magical transparent dragonfly wings. The force field "blades" extended out much longer than regular helicopter blades.

"Activate stealth mode," Tildaith said into the mic in his uniform collar.

The blades suddenly deformed, twisting and joining up into a sphere surrounding the craft and radiating outward, it swirled like oil on water for a moment, like a soap bubble, then abruptly vanished, taking the chopper with it.

Rory could see directly to the other side of the tarmac.

"Good enough, Doctor?" Tildaith said with satisfaction.

"Very good," the Doctor said, grinning. He loved a light show. "Very elegant."

"Elegant, yes," Tildaith said, he muttered into his mic and the field collapsed, returning the squat black chopper to the airfield. "But we can't use weapons while we're cloaked. It screws up the targeting sensors and manual firing is randomly deflected. Anything going through the field is scattered, that's why it works. And why it doesn't work," he said with patient disgust. "Our people are working on it."

"Well," the Doctor said, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels in satisfaction, "The whole point of stealth is to be able to avoid confrontation anyway."

"So why are we testing this now?" Rory asked, antsy to be on his way.

"Because it would be foolish to go on a stealth mission, only to discover at the last minute that your stealth equipment wasn't working," Tildaith said.

"Ah. Good point," Rory said.

"We're likely going to have to dodge patrols to get close to that hive. I don't expect it to be easy," the Colonel said.

"A good attitude, " the Doctor agreed. "Always expect trouble."

"Yeah, I'm learning that," Rory said, giving the Doctor a gimlet look. The Doctor just raised his eyebrows at him.

—

They managed to dodge into a deserted side corridor without being seen. The search appeared to have wound down, or moved on, but like a mouse in a cat house, Amy wasn't betting on it.

This hallway was lined with egg cells, as most of them seemed to be, each bin with a tube leading down into it. Last night she had assumed the dark tubes were some sort of chutes, for delivering grain possibly, extra food for the grubs. But each tube was now shining with light.

Amy stopped to study an empty cell.

"Come on, we haven't got time for this!" Stanley said, hopping impatiently from foot to foot, his head busy swiveling both ways, watching for Wirrn.

Amy stepped into the empty bin and looked up into the tube. The inside was bright, and completely clean, no grain stuck to the walls, and there was no evidence of anything else being shoved down it. The tube seemed entirely designed to deliver light. The inside of the tube wasn't mirrored metal, but a sort of chalky white, fronted with a clear, almost nacreous substance, like the inside of a snail's shell.

It wasn't completely smooth, but subtly rippled, as if it hadn't been drilled out, but burrowed out. Considering the size of the grubs she'd seen, she didn't want to think about what had burrowed it out.

She pulled her head out and shot a triumphant grin at Stanley, remembering all the shining tubes that decorated the walls of the hive like a Christmas tree.

"These aren't chutes," she said with an air of discovery. "They're solar tubes, bringing sunlight down for the grubs."

"So?"

"We could climb out this way!"

His eyes riveted on her. "You're mad! That's hundreds of feet, straight up!"

"Do you have wings?" Amy demanded, waving a hand toward the atrium and its opening dozens of stories above them.

"No." He scowled, stuffing his hands in his pockets defensively.

"Do you want to try to ride one of those things bareback to get out of here?" she asked.

"No Thank You!" Stanley said emphatically.

"Then we climb," Amy finished.

—

"Why are they so big?" Stanley asked, climbing into the cell with her and lifting Schwillic inside. "The light in our cell was only about a foot across."

"I don't know," Amy said, looking up into the three foot wide tube. "Maybe the grubs need more light. The Doctor said they need sunlight."

"Wait a minute." Stanley protested. "How do you know it's not sealed off at the top? Aren't solar tubes usually sealed off to keep out rain? We're not going to be able to chop through with just your pocket knife."

"Yeah, but this stuff isn't actually very clear, if they sealed off the top with this they'd lose a lot of the light. Besides, when was the last time you saw a bee hive with windows?"

He gritted his teeth at her and glared. "All right. But if we get to the top and can't get out, it will be all your fault."

"It usually is. Come on."

Amy went first. Once she was braced, Stanley boosted Schwillic up into the tube after her. Amy had assumed climbing would be easiest for the tripod, with three legs he could just zoom up the tubes, but when she held him up, he didn't have quite enough reach to brace against the sides, his legs weren't long enough.

"I'm sorry," he wilted with disappointment in her hands. "I'm not going to be able to make it," he apologized.

"Nonsense," Amy said roundly. "We're not leaving you here. I'll carry you." She plumped the little alien down in her miniskirted lap. She took an experimental step up. She braced her feet against the opposite side of the tube and pushed up, sliding her back up and bracing again before moving the other foot. The ripples helped. And Schwillic wasn't too much in the way. "You okay, Stanley?" she called down.

There was a childish grunt below her. "Yeah, just get moving, I can't go anywhere with your fanny hanging over my face."

Amy grumbled. "There's plenty of guys who'd love to have a view of my fanny."

"Whatever," he said below her, with supreme adolescent unconcern, "Just get moving."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Hold on, Schwillic."

She started inching her way up.

Only several hundred feet to go.

*

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	18. Chapter 18

"Wouldn't you know it would be a flipping maze!" Amy said with disgust. She banged her head down on her arms were she lay in one of the horizontal tubes.

They'd already climbed a couple of hundred feet. Her legs were burning and it felt like she had a knife in the small of her back.

Stanley sat crosswise across the back of her legs, his warm weight felt good on her abused muscles. He was breathing hard, as worn out as she was.

The solar tubes weren't just a straight climb to the outside as she'd assumed. They branched all over the hive, small holes led off of the big tubes at irregular intervals, which occasionally gave them handy foot holds -- but also gave them the worry that their large tube would suddenly end in a tiny fist-sized hole that they'd never get out of.

They'd climbed about 70 feet before the first tube dead-ended. Fortunately, it branched off in a lateral tube, then back up again, then sideways. She felt like she was a slider in one of those "rearrange the tiles" games. Going back and forth, side to side, but generally up. At least it was bright, and not too hot, it was actually kind of cool, with a whispering wind always blowing across them. But the detours had added hundreds of feet to their climb.

Fortunately, while Schwillic couldn't handle the vertical climb, he was able to scuttle along the horizontal tubes with ease, giving Amy and Stanley a break as he scouted ahead for them.

Schwillic trundled back down the pipe and tapped her on top of the head. She looked up, weary.

"I found another vertical shaft. It's a long one, but I think I can see sky at the top."

"Lead on." She waved majestically and dragged herself to to her knees.

One thing was for sure, she thought, these tights were going directly in the trash when they got out of this.

 

"Oh great," she muttered as she looked at the intersection Schwillic led them to.

A large vertical shaft intersected their large pipe. And while the shaft did go up, it also went straight down, there was no floor under it, no footing.

"How are we going to get up into that?" Amy groused.

"What is it?" Stanley said behind her.

She looked back past her knees. "Give me a little room. This is going to take some contortions."

He gave her an arch look but stopped while she crawled forward the last few feet.

She looked down the light tube. The well proceeded so far down it disappeared into a white haze.

"OK," she said to herself. "Falling would be a bad idea."

She studied the situation. Her bruised knees were screaming at her in protest at the hard rippled glasslike surface, so switching back to feet and back would be good for them at least. As long as her legs didn't fail on her. She shoved that thought aside.

With no floor she couldn't just stand up into the vertical tube.

With much grunting she managed to twist herself around in the confining pipe and get her feet in front of her. She braced her feet on the opposite lip of the well. She scootched forward until her bum was on this side of the well, then lifted her arms up into the shaft above her head and braced them on each side.

Schwillic had climbed over and around her during her contortions, she'd felt his feet on her sides and back like pokey little paws, he was now behind her. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked.

"No," Amy said. "But we've got to try something."

With a grunt and a heave she used her braced arms to pull herself up into the tube. Then, with her back against the wall and her feet still propped on the well rim, she eased herself upright, lifted one foot, then the other, to brace against the wall. With a bit of wiggling she got into a good "braced climbing" position and pushed herself up a foot or two.

"OK," she breathed out, stable. "That wasn't so bad.

"Stanley," she peered down past her legs. "Boost Schwillic up to me. Then it's your turn."

Stanley simply stuck his head up the pipe, braced a foot on each side of the well, then handed the tripod up to her before jumping up and bracing himself between the walls.

Amy grumped. "Show off."

\----------

It seemed like they climbed forever. Brace against the wall, lift one foot, lift the other, slide up, repeat. Again and again, inch by inch, they climbed. The rippled wall dug into Amy's back. Schwillic shifted in her lap. The light got brighter.

Coming out of a haze of effort, Amy looked up. "Stanley!" she yelled. "We're almost there!"

She looked down past her hips at the 12 year old boy braced below her. She swallowed convulsively as her eyes slid past him to the endless drop below. She jerked her face back up, pushed a little harder with her feet, wedging herself firmly.

She looked up again, blue sky, yellow sunlight, she could even see clouds. The opening was only 20 feet or so above her. And it wasn't covered. There was no window to hack through, just clear open air.

Excited, desperate for freedom, hopeful, she shoved her way up. Step, step, slide, step, step, slide. They were almost out!

Her next step she almost missed. She fumbled, and gave a little shriek. Schwillic clamped all three legs around her. Stanley yelled.

"What happened?" he asked, once she'd stabilized.

Amy wiped sweat off her forehead. She tapped the wall gingerly with a foot, testing. "It's wider here," she said in consternation.

"Can you go up?" he asked.

Amy edged upward, careful to brace her legs before moving. She managed to go up another couple of feet, but the top of the shaft widened out almost into a cone. Not enough to see, not enough to provide a rim to hold onto, but too wide to brace herself up any farther.

"How are you doing?" she called down to him. Stanley was considerably shorter than her. She looked down, gently easing Schwillic's hug against her stomach. Stanley was a few feet farther down from her.

He shook his head at her, "I can't go any higher." He looked devastated.

Amy looked up. The surface was only a few feet away. She reached up. She strained, bracing one arm against the wall behind her for leverage. She stretched her fingers as far as they'd go.

It was no use. The rim, and freedom, was only a few feet above them, she could see sky, but couldn't reach it. It was maddening.

She contemplated the nacreous ripples on the wall, wondering if she could get enough traction on them to crawl out. But the surface of the bright tube was too smooth, the ripples might give them some traction pushing up, but here was nothing to catch onto to _pull_ themselves up.

"Give me a boost," Schwillic said. She looked down at the little pink alien in her lap. She could feel his skin vibrate against her stomach as he spoke. "I might be tall enough." He unwrapped his tentacle-like legs from around her waist and stood up. She braced herself firmly against the small of her back and used both hands to lift his body high.

He strained one long tentacle upward, Amy could see his leg distending, stretching each vertebrae. He patted the wall less than two feet from the top.

"Here, put me down for a second," he said. Amy set him back down in her lap.

"What are you doing up there?" Stanley called out.

"Schwillic may be able to reach the edge if we can just get him high enough," Amy yelled down.

"Hold your palm flat," Schwillic said, tapping one of her hands. "I'll stand on it. Hold me up as high as you can."

"I can't do that!" Amy protested. "You'll fall!"

"I can brace one leg against the side of the tube for balance," he assured her. "Come on. We've come this far."

Amy swallowed and tried not to think about the endless drop below them. Or how vulnerable the little alien was. He'd cuddled his warm little body in her lap all the way up here. He was like a living teddy bear (not that she'd ever tell him that) the thought of him falling to his death was horrifying.

"Stanley," she yelled down. "Work your way around crosswise to me," she instructed. "I'm going to hold Schwillic up, if he falls, I want you to be able to catch him."

"All right, give me a minute." There was some childlike grunting and shuffling below her. She looked down to see him crabwalking sideways over the bottomless pit. She closed her eyes.

"All right, I'm ready." She opened her eyes to see the boy looking up at her, freckled face serious, red hair sticking out in every direction. He'd worked his way 90 degrees to her position. "Let her rip," he said, giving her a falsely encouraging smile.

Amy looked up, she could see grass waving at the edge of the hole, a light breeze blew the scent of green growing things down to them. A puffy, weightless cloud drifted by, mocking her.

"All right, Schwillic, I'm going to hold onto your leg until the last minute, okay?"

"Fine with me, I don't relish falling any more than you do." The tripod extended a leg and Amy took hold of it, he sat on her hand and wrapped another tentacle around her wrist, he extended the other leg to bump against the wall as she lifted him up.

She lifted him as high as she dared, close to the wall, but not too close. She felt his leg around her wrist slip loose and gritted her teeth. Carefully, balancing, he stretched upward, reaching.

He stood up in her grasp, balancing on the leg she held, one coiled against the wall he leaned on, his other leg tip stretched up, just another few inches and he'd have it.

"Let go of my foot," he said.

Amy gulped but carefully loosened her grip and flattened her palm. He stood up on tiptoe, his leg tip velvety soft on her palm. He reached up with his top leg and stretched his full length.

He touched one of the blades of grass flopping down over the lip of the well.

"Yes!" Amy yelled. Her heart pounded with excitement.

He patted the grass blade, but tripod legs weren't dexterous enough. It was like trying to grab something with one finger. Yet, if he could hook it over the edge... He stretched with all his might. Amy could feel him trembling on the palm of her hand. She was sure she heard a joint pop.

Suddenly, giving her a heart attack, he hopped. His leg slammed against the wall, making a desperate reach for the edge. It was too high. Three inches. Three bloody inches.

He fell and Amy grabbed him, snagging him to her chest, her heart about to burst. "Schwillic!" she yelled. She squashed his squishy little body to her. She looked down at him, he'd turned slightly blue. He was trembling.

"Don't do that!" she yelled at him.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't reach," he said in despair. He huddled in her arms. She hugged him.

"Well, we're not trying that again," Amy said with finality.

"What's going on?" Stanley yelled up.

Amy looked down. "It didn't work. We can't reach. If we had a rope or something..." She shook her head.

She looked up one last time at that mocking sky, so near, yet so far. At least she didn't see any Wirrn. She looked back down at Stanley. Then past him. One thing was sure, they couldn't climb back down again.

"All we can do now is activate your tracer and hope somebody hears," she said, looking back at him.

"Do you think those creatures are far enough away?" he called up, doubtfully.

"Do you have any better idea?" Amy called down, more hopeful than sarcastic. She stared down at him past her hip.

He sighed. "No."

She watched him twist around, lean forward, braced between feet and the small of his back above an endless pit. It was a tricky maneuver, fortunately he was a flexible boy. He pinched the back of his calf.

"It's on."

Amy settled her weight. Schwillic curled himself into a disconsolate ball in her lap.

All they could do now was wait.

*

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	19. Chapter 19

"Tracer!" the Doctor yelled.

Everyone jumped. The chopper was running on stealth mode. They had avoided two Wirrn patrols already and everyone was quiet and on edge.

"I'm getting a tracking signal!" the Doctor exclaimed - his fingers flew over the tracker board in his lap.

"Amy?" Rory said hopefully, leaning forward in his seat.

"No, the board is identifying it as Stanley's," the Doctor said. "It just started up."

"Stanley?" Tildaith asked from his position beside the cockpit.

"The tracking technician who was kidnapped with Amy and Captain Schwillic. This is his board," the Doctor held it up to demonstrate.

"What are the coordinates?" Tildaith asked.

The Doctor read them off, "178 miles south, half a grid east."

Tildaith leaned over and checked the flight computer. "That puts it right at the hive."

"I know," the Doctor said.

—————

"There! There. Right there!" the Doctor said, pointing. "Put us down here," he ordered.

Tildaith nodded to his officer. "Set us down, pilot."

Rory and the Doctor were already unbuckled and standing at the door.

The pilot set them down on the sloping hillside. The Doctor unlatched the door and slid it open. Tildaith grabbed his arm. "Just a minute, Doctor."

The Doctor looked down in surprise at that child-size, businesslike hand on his sleeve.

"Scan for Wirrn," Tildaith ordered, turning to his tech expert. "Passive scan only."

They were parked on the sloping, grassy dome of the Wirrn hive. The tech ran her scans. "Nothing up here at the moment, sir."

Tildaith nodded. "Pilot, extend the field."

Rory watched impatiently through the chopper doorway. He couldn't _see_ the stealth shield, but he could see it receding farther away, everything outside the shield was shifted slightly to one side, he saw the effect ripple out like a wave.

"Okay, Doctor, go to it." Tildaith released the Time Lord's arm and the Doctor bolted out of the craft. He ran in a crouch, the wind from the chopper's blades whipping at the grass and his clothes, Rory right behind him.

Tildaith and his Marines deployed around the chopper, within the stealth shield, the chopper turrets swiveled to scan the sky.

\----------

The hillside was unusually smooth, an artificial domelike shape covered with a thin layer of golden grass which blended with the sea of wheat all around them.

Large holes pocked the shallow dome at irregular intervals. The sky was a clear blue, innocent. But Rory kept an eye on it nervously, looking for Wirrn.

The Doctor ran to a specific hole on the hillside, fell to his knees and peered inside. "Amy!"

Amy's weary, dirty face and hay-filled hair turned up to him. "What took you so long!?"

The Doctor grinned to hear her in such fine fettle. "Time is objective, Amy. We were already virtually here when we picked up Stanley's tracer."

"Well don't hang about, get us out of here!"

Rory raced up to look down the shaft, joyous at the sound of Amy's voice. He paled at the sight of Amy and Stanley braced between the walls with nothing under them but hundreds of feet of empty air. He stepped back from the edge.

"Rory, grab my waistband," the Doctor said. Rory took a firm hold on him and braced his legs on either side of the Doctor's, the Doctor laid down and stretched his arms down into the hole.

As long as the Doctor's arms were, they weren't long enough to reach Amy.

He hitched himself farther out over the lip. He stretched his bony fingers down, arm wavering, she reached up, trying to grab his hand. The shadow of his windswept head fell on her face, but it was just too far, less than half a foot, but impossible.

Schwillic abruptly scuttled up her arm, wrapped a leg around her wrist and reached up and wrapped a leg around the Doctor's wrist. The Doctor grunted and pulled back.

"Pull Rory!" he yelled.

"No, Schwillic!" Amy protested. "I'm too heavy for you." She could feel herself start to slide up, losing her purchase. Schwillic's body stretched, she could feel his quiet keen as muscles strained to the breaking point. "No!" She yanked back, trying to break his hold. He tightened his leg painfully around her wrist, but lost his hold on the Doctor.

She pried his leg loose. "Doctor, take him!" She tossed Schwillic up before the tripod could protest.

The Doctor lunged forward and caught the alien awkwardly in both hands, but then couldn't get a hand free to push himself up.

"Schwillic, climb up my arm," he said.

Schwillic clamped all three prehensile legs around the Doctor's arm and clambered up -- over the Time Lord's shoulder and down his back. The tripod turned at the top and stared back down the hole.

"You should have let me help!" he vibrated down to Amy who was braced again between the walls, using her arms as well as her legs. She stared up at him mutinously.

"Not if it's going to rip you in half," she sniped back.

"Well do _something_ ," Stanley yelled from beneath her. "I'm not getting any younger down here!"

\----------

Tildaith stood on guard behind the Doctor and Rory as they rescued their friends. He had his pistol out, scanning the sky, another kevlar-clad trooper beside him. 

"Sir!" the trooper yelled, and gestured with his rifle. 

Tildaith turned to the head of the hill where the guard was pointing. A Wirrn flew up out of the entrance to the hive, a mere two acres away from them. It hovered on the air, wings beating invisibly fast, slowly turning, antennae twitching, looking for something.

"Doctor," Tildaith said, "We've got company."

\----------

The Doctor lifted at the waist and glanced at the hovering Wirrn, then stretched back down to Amy. He leaned in as far as he dared. Rory holding onto his waistband.

"Come on, Amy. Reach!" The Doctor grunted as the rim cut into his stomach.

Amy stretched up as far as she could. Desperate, she braced one arm on the wall behind her and pushed away, stretching up for the Doctor's hand.

She lost purchase, her feet slipped and she fell a few inches, before slamming her back back against the wall. Hyperventilating.

"AMY!" Stanley yelled from below her.

"I'm all right," she called down, wedging herself frantically between the walls. She wiggled herself back into position.

"Amy! Don't move!" The Doctor backed up onto his knees and whipped off his bow tie. It was a pre-tied one, with the bow attached to the front of the neckband, he tied the clip ends together into a knot and dangled the loop down the shaft, bowtie first.

"Grab hold!" he yelled.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!" Amy's voice echoed up the shaft. Rory -- holding onto the Doctor's waistband -- grinned in relief to hear it.

A few seconds later the Doctor pulled Amy out of the shaft like pulling a fish from a barrel. Amy stumbled over the edge and immediately clung to Rory, hugging him fervently. He crushed her close, burying his face in her hair.

"Not to alarm you, Doctor," Tildaith said from behind them. "But there are more of them."

The Marines stood stock still within the chopper's stealth field. Their weapons at the ready, each child-sized soldier trained on the giant hovering wasps. Machine guns raised, quivering with tension.

The wasp was joined by another, and another, emerging upward from the hive. Their antenna twitched, they turned, searching.

"Quick," Amy said in a feverish whisper, turning to the Doctor. "Stanley's still down there, he was below me."

The Doctor dropped down and dangled the bowtie down the shaft. Stanley had crabwalked his way up as high as he could, but he still couldn't get as high as Amy. The bowtie was far too short.

The soldiers were getting jumpy. The Wirrn had stopped searching and all three had turned toward the cloaked chopper, antenna twitching, obviously sensing something.

"Hold your fire!" Tildaith yelled. "Only fire if they penetrate the stealth shield!"

Hammers were cocked back, sounding like a field of particularly lethal crickets. But the soldiers held their ground.

"Stay there, Stanley," the Doctor called down the well to the boy.

"I'm not going anywhere," the teenager said with weary humor.

The Doctor sat back on his knees and stuffed his bowtie in his pants pocket. He unclipped his suspenders and dangled them down the light well. They flopped against the wall, still too short.

He sat up again. "Rory, give me your belt," The Doctor tied the top of his braces in a knot, slipped Rory's belt through the loop and back through its buckle, adding its length. He dangled it down belt first to the boy, Stanley grabbed hold.

Amy, peering down the well, couldn't resist. "What was that about somebody needing a leash?" Amy called down.

Stanley glared up at her. "Shut up."

—————

"Can those things detect electromagnetic fields?" Tildaith asked the Doctor quietly from behind Rory, his gun trained on the hovering Wirrn. The Doctor grunted on his stomach as he hauled Stanley up. "Very probably," he said.

"Definitely," Stanley said as he cleared the hole.

"Then we've got a problem," Tildaith said. "The stealth shield is electromagnetic."

"Yeah, I sort of figured that," the Doctor said as he jumped to his feet.

"Why didn't you mention it before?" Tildaith demanded.

"Well," the Doctor said. "They can't _see_ us."

"What good does that do if they can sense us?" Tildaith demanded.

"Well, it got you moving. Let's not hang about though, shall we?" He turned and took one look at the trio of wasps.

"If they can't detect your chopper they may be detecting my tracer," Stanley said, worriedly.

"In that case," the Doctor said. "Run!" He sprinted for the chopper.

The wasps dove.

\----------

"Withdraw!" Tildaith bellowed.

Everyone pelted for the chopper with no deference to rank or privilege. Childsized Marines piled in from both sides, Stanley scrambled in, carrying Schwillic, Rory and Amy right behind. 

The Doctor and Tildaith turned to slam the doors. A Wirrn foreleg scrabbled in the gap, the Doctor kicked it. The Wirrn screamed and jerked back. "Go, go! Immediate liftoff!" Tildaith ordered. They slammed the hatch.

The chopper lifted off and spun on its axis, tilting as it drove forward. The hull shuddered as a heavy insect body rammed against it.

"Weapons, sir?" one of the gunners asked from his seat in one of the bulbous turrets.

"Not yet, but keep them ready. Pilot, give us some distance. Everyone get strapped in!" Tildaith ordered over the sound of the chopper blades.

Amy saw several of the Fayanoran Marines jerking their straps tight. She was sitting on Rory's lap in the limited space. She reached across the narrow aisle and snapped the Doctor's buckles around him as he fumbled. She was cinched in tight with Rory.

"Jet mode.' Tildaith said to his pilot.

Amy saw the distortion field of the cloak disappear around them. The Wirrn were gaining.

The shimmery field formed into a vertical ring around the chopper, top to bottom. It formed into a cone pointing aft.

"Hold on!" the Doctor yelled, bracing his arms against the ceiling.

With a roar the chopper leapt forward like a rocket.

Rory was pushed forward in his backwards seat, half bent over Amy.

He looked up at the Doctor who was grinning in mad delight.

Rory looked through the window to see the Wirrn diminishing into specks behind them. 

"These people are good!" he yelled.

—————

They quickly outpaced the Wirrn, and once they were past the range of Wirrn patrols they dropped back to normal flight. Jet configuration apparently took a lot of energy.

Amy breathed a sigh of relief and dropped her head on Rory's shoulder. He was only too happy to hold her tight.

She looked across the aisle to find the Doctor sitting there, hair bristling in every direction, his braces dangling out of one pocket, casually putting on his bow tie.

She glared at his tie. "I can't _believe_ you did that!" she said, in disgust.

He patted his bowtie with satisfaction. "I keep telling you, Amy. Bowties are cool!"

 

Amy groaned and rolled her eyes. She looked down her body, draped over Rory's lap. She held out her legs. Her hose were in tatters, flecked with hay and caked with dirt. She grimaced, just imagining what the rest of her looked like. Stanley, farther down the bench row of Marines, looked like a refugee from a dump. One of the Marines, apparently a medic, was unpeeling the sock from his arm.

She looked down at the impromptu bandage on her own arm. "Amy!" Rory said in concern, seeing the filthy dressing. He immediately grabbed her arm and gingerly rolled the sock down and off. He carefully peeled the sock pad away. It was crusty at the edges, and she started bleeding again slightly as it came free, revealing the quarter-sized raw divot. Rory growled slightly under his breath. He leaned sideways to accept the medical kit one of the Marines passed to him.

The Doctor saw the bleeding hole and took her arm in his from across the aisle very gently, "Oh, Amy..." he leaned forward and gently kissed her arm beside the wound. His lips were soft. Amy's fingers curled. The dark eyes that he lifted to hers were devastated.

 

Amy gritted her jaw. "I. Don't. Like. Bugs!" she declared fiercely. Anything to wipe that look off his face. "Squash them!" Give him something to do, that was the ticket.

"Oh, I intend to," the Doctor said. He leaned back and crossed his arms, studying her.

"It'll be all right, Amy," Rory said, as he rummaged in the medkit. He ripped open a sterile swab and started cleaning her arm. "I've been studying the equipment in the Tardis sickbay, we can fix you right up. There won't even be a scar, I promise." He matter-of-factly fussed over her arm. Cleaning the wound, applying antiseptic, and bandaging it neatly, so intent on making her better that he was oblivious to everything else. He was so furious and determined and cute that all she could do was lean forward and kiss his cheek.

The Doctor watched them with a smile.

"What about me?" Stanley said, waving his newly bandaged arm at them.

"Yes, you too," the Doctor said. He grinned down the aisle at the freckle-faced boy. Schwillic was strapped into the bench beside him, the straps cutting oddly across his pudgy, pink body.

"You got any food in there?" Amy asked Rory, staring down at the medikit he was packing up. "I'm starving."

Down the aisle, Stanley rummaged in his pants pocket and pulled out a power bar, he tossed it to her. She caught the crushed bar and stared down at it in consternation.

She looked up at him. "You had this the whole time?"

He shrugged, shame-faced. "I forgot."

That seemed to break the ice. All the Marines relaxed and started chatting. Somebody broke out a cache of power bars and started passing them around.

"So," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. "What did you learn?" He turned to Amy.

Between bites of her crumbled power bar, and interruptions from Stanley, Amy explained what they'd discovered. The smoke bomb factory, the communications satellite, the converted, Gandhi...

"So, it's the Swarm Leader who is behind it all," the Doctor said.

"Yes," Amy said. "He's the biggest Wirrn we saw, and really old, some sort of Methuselah. That's why they all listen to him. He was apparently born from a soldier on a battlefield. He plans to turn Feyanora into a breeding colony, use the humans for livestock, and call the rest of the Wirrn here," Amy concluded.

All the Feyanorans seemed to have lost their appetite, they sat very still, listening.

"He means war," Colonel Tildaith said.

Rory turned to look at him at that guttural announcement. The Colonel was standing with his arms crossed, looking lethal. Rory had never seen such a grim look on a 12 year old face before. But then, this was his world they were talking about.

"Oh, it won't come to that, Colonel," the Doctor said with inappropriate cheerfulness.

"I've got a plan."

*

* * *

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	20. Chapter 20

"No offense," Tildaith said, arms crossed. "But this isn't your fight."

"Oh, but it is," the Doctor said. "They kidnapped my friend, took a bite out of her arm, and refused to play nicely. I'm _making_ it my business," the Doctor said, crossing his arms and leaning back. "I've defeated these things before. I can do it again."

Tildaith stared at him hard for long minutes. Everyone was quiet, watching the battle of wills, only the chuffing of the chopper blades and the muffled roar of air past the doors punctuated the silence.

"Seems to me the traditional response will still work," Tildaith said. "We firebomb the hive. Burn them out. They've already killed 300 of our people. We have the right." His eyes challenged the Doctor.

"But if you firebomb them, they'll explode out of the hive and scatter to the winds. You'll never find them all. And if even one Wirrn survives, this whole business starts up again. You'll never be able to stop looking, never be sure you got them all. Never mind what fire would do to the wheat fields, potentially burning millions of acres.

"No, I have a much better idea."

Tildaith cocked his head, his intelligent, sharp eyes considered the odd grown-up. "Your records do indicate that you have considerable experience routing alien invasions, with minimal loss of life."

"Oh. Do they?" the Doctor perked up happily.

"So what is your plan?"

"We're..." the Doctor said.

"Unidentified vehicle," the radio suddenly interrupted them, "This is Kitterang Tower. Identify."

Amy looked at Rory at that crisp, military sounding voice. The pilot looked at the Colonel. Tildaith nodded.

"Kitterang Tower," the pilot replied, "This is military chopper 7862, Colonel Sethaniel Tildaith commanding."

"Confirmed, chopper 7862, you are cleared to land. Sheriff Anderson and Major Jensen are standing by for debriefing."

—————--

They arrived back at the farm shortly thereafter, to find it had been transformed into an army camp.

They flew in over the farmhouse. Anti-aircraft guns tracked them from the tops of the silos.

The landing area bristled with anti-aircraft guns, choppers, attack ATVs, mortars, and dozens and dozens of tiny Kevlar-clad soldiers. A group of civilian ATVs were clustered around the control tower. The place was crawling with activity.

Colonel Tildaith turned to face them from the cockpit.

"We'll reconvene in an hour, Doctor, to consider your plan." He turned to the others in the chopper. "Security protocols are in force," Tildaith said, projecting his voice to everyone, making eye contact with civilians and soldiers alike. "No information is to be given to the media services and no one is to discuss this event among themselves where the media may overhear, understood?"

There was a chorus of, "Yes, sir."

—————--

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory disembarked into a circus of diminutive reporters. Flashbulbs flashed, little whiz ball cameras swooped all around them, and a pack of reporters, held back by a cordon of soldiers, barraged them with questions.

Stanley disembarked behind them, carrying Schwillic. "Keep hold of him, Stanley," the Doctor muttered to him in an aside. "Sorry Captain," the Doctor apologized, "but you're likely to get trampled in this mob."

"I appreciate the courtesy," Schwillic vibrated back.

Ignoring the reporters, with Amy and Rory standing in front of him like giant shields among the smaller Feyanorans, the Doctor turned to Stanley, "I'm going to need some electronics equipment, where do you suggest we start?"

"What kind of equipment?"

"Sensors, force field equipment," he said.

"Then let’s start with mine." Stanley started sidling off to the side. Colonel Tildaith stepped down from the chopper behind them and the reporters attention focused on him.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," Tildaith said. "This is a military maneuver. You have been briefed on what we know by Senior Forensics Technician Clarke. We have no further comment at this time. Press releases will be circulated as soon as we have more information. For now, please disburse and allow us to continue with our job."

"And what would that job be, Colonel?" A reporter yelled from the back of the pack, undaunted.

Amy, Rory, and the Doctor slipped away.

—————

They didn't manage a clean getaway. Three giants, a tripod, and a teenager were too enticing an anomaly in a military exercise to go unnoticed. Fist-sized whiz ball cameras paced them and swirled around them at every step. Darting and swooping in for closeups and pan shots.

The Doctor ignored them, Stanley acted as if they weren't there. Amy and Rory took their cue from them.

It was a hot day. The tarmac was baking under their feet as they made their way to Stanley's sensor equipment, still set up at the corner of the airfield.

The oppressive atmosphere wasn't improved by the heavy metal of military choppers, gun placements, helmeted soldiers and the rather stifling feeling of being under siege.

Stanley set Schwillic down on the cool grass beside the sensor array. The Doctor immediately started crawling over the equipment, muttering specifications to himself and occasionally addressing a question to Stanley.

A circle of reporters stood a good distance away, keeping an avid eye on them, apparently hoping for some tidbit, and meanwhile snapping pictures and jotting notes.

Schwillic sat down on his rump in the grass, curling his one leg forward. "I could do with a beer right now," he said wearily.

The Doctor grinned up at him. "Don't worry, Captain. We'll get you back to your ship. Meanwhile, why don't you try up at the house?" the Doctor gestured with the sonic screwdriver. "They might have something."

Amy and Rory looked up at the Palladian mansion, black-clad soldiers were streaming in and out on various errands.

"Good idea." Schwillic hauled himself to his feet and plodded wearily, threefooted, up to the house.

"Go with him, Stanley," the Doctor suggested. "He looks done in." He saw a couple of reporters converging on the Tripod.

"Yeah," Stanley frowned, he usually liked dealing with reporters in his work with search and rescue, but sometimes they could be a real pain. "Schwillic! Hold up." He trotted after his friend.

"A beer?" Amy said with a snerk.

Rory stared after the little pink alien in surprise. "How would he drink it?"

"They don't. They swim in it. Absorb it through their skin," the Doctor said.

Amy and Rory stared at him. Amy flashed on the image of Schwillic taking a dunk in the Wirrn horse trough.

"Beer's very nutritious," the Doctor said, seeing their looks. "The Egyptians used to feed it to their slaves.

"What did you think they did with all that wheat they buy?"

—————--

Time crawled. With the reporters cameras dogging them everywhere they couldn't talk about the Wirrn. The heat of the day was becoming oppressive. Rory shrugged out of his vest and opened his shirt collar. Amy started to feel the itch of her filthy hose as she began to sweat.

The Doctor didn't seem to feel the heat. Bundled up in jacket and bow tie, he dragged them all over the farm, investigating the silos, poking into the military supplies, watching as choppers rotated in and out of the landing strip, apparently going on patrol.

The wiz ball cameras kept swooping around them. One came close enough to Amy to ruffle her hair. "Hey!" she swatted at it, but it dodged away, almost mockingly.

"Haven't they got enough pictures yet?" Rory groused.

"Freedom of the press, Rory. Very important in a democratic society," the Doctor said. "Besides we're big news. Hah!" He turned and grinned at them at his joke. "Big news." They glared at him. "No?"

"No," they both said together.

The Doctor sighed.

He took one long last look at the landing field and all the military activity going on around them. Short soldiers trotted by. Reporters craned their necks from the shadow of the traffic control tower. Ground crews loaded missiles into the nose cones of the two sleek attack ATVs. The sheriff's ATV sat forlornly in the middle of the field, looking like a puppy intimidated by hunting hounds.

The wheat fields hung heavy under the hot sun, looking forlorn, as if the farm itself understood what was about to happen.

"Come on," the Doctor said. "Tildaith's had his hour. Lets finish this."

—————--

They were intercepted halfway to the farmhouse by a soldier that had been sent to fetch them. He led them to the conference room off of the main hall of the mansion which the militia had apparently confiscated as its war room.

Stanley and Captain Schwillic were already there. Schwillic was sitting on the end of the table, all three legs tucked underneath him, looking slightly gray. Stanley saw the three of them arrive and poured out three huge glasses of lemonade from a sweating pitcher by his side. They were huge tumblers by Feyanoran standards but just right for giant grown-up hands.

Rory thanked him and drank greedily. Amy looked at the glass and felt herself blinking with weariness. "You got anything with caffeine?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Stanley said, "What's that?"

Amy sighed. "Never mind." She held up the glass. "Cheers." She drank it down in a gulp and immediately perked up. "Whoo! That's cold!"

The Doctor went over to talk to Schwillic with concern.

Aside from Stanley and Schwillic there were two techs in the room, and one slim young solder who looked like a clerk, who was compiling notes on an electronic pad.

Colonel Tildaith walked in, followed by three officers. One of the techs closed the door.

"Corporal, scan please," Tildaith said, holding up a hand when it looked like Amy was about to say something. She bit down on her lip and took another sip of her lemonade.

The pad-wielding clerk activated something on her pad and did a slow walk around the room. She stopped beside Rory, who was sitting at the table, reached under the table by his leg and pulled out a small electronic device. She held it up to show the Colonel and he nodded. Everyone remained silent while the corporal finished her circuit, finding another device stuck to the outside rim of the door frame. She scanned the two devices, saved the information, then set the devices in a small lead casket she had sitting by the door and shut the lid.

"Whose?" Tildaith asked.

"Daily Star Media, and Land Central News," she replied.

Colonel Tildaith nodded to one of his officers. "Take care of it."

"Yes sir," the boy saluted and left the room.

"Please, everyone take a seat." Tildaith sat at the head of the table with his senior officers beside him. "This is Major Jensen and Captain Morris," Tildaith introduced, waving at the stout Asian boy on his left and the pale, almost white-blond girl on his right. Both nodded with professional reserve. "They are my seconds for this defense force."

The door abruptly burst open and Dutch and Jeff ran in, "Sorry we're late," Dutch panted.

The Doctor noticed Captain Morris reholster her sidearm and sit slowly back down. Jeff shut the door carefully.

"Corporal, scan them," Tildaith ordered.

The Corporal ran her pad over the two civilian officers and nodded.

"Right," Tildaith said, "Take a seat, gentlemen."

"Amy, I'm pleased to see you're okay," Dutch said as he sat down at the table opposite her.

Amy grinned at him, "Takes more than a few bugs to keep me down."

Rory snorted.

"Right, yes," the Doctor said. "If we can get down to business now? Those Wirrn aren't going to wait forever. What have you discovered, Colonel?" the Doctor said, taking charge.

Tildaith nodded. "I've set up defensive patrols around the farm and started surveillance on the hive. I've also alerted all the local authorities to be on the lookout. Fortunately, there is, as yet, no response from the Wirrn. No increased patrols, no unexpected flights. They appear to think they frightened us off. Or they're laying low for their own reasons. We're still trying to map the locations of any Wirrn outside the hive, but it will take time."

The Doctor nodded, "They're likely scattered far and wide, foraging."

Tildaith nodded. He turned to Amy and Stanley. "Amy, how many Wirrn would you estimate were in the hive?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. We saw about two or three dozen, but I don't know if they were all different ones or the same ones over and over. I couldn't tell them apart except for the big ones. But the hive is vast, there could have been hundreds we never saw. And there were thousand of egg cells." She saw the worried looks on the Feyanoran's faces. "They weren't all full of eggs," she tried to reassure them. "They probably didn't have more than the few hundred from the farmers here and from the herd animals they used." She grimaced, realizing that wasn't much comfort.

"How big were the grubs?" the Doctor asked.

"Bigger than me. I didn't see any hatched, but those light tubes had to be dug by something, and it wasn't the adult Wirrn," she said. Stanley nodded.

"Captain Schwillic," Tildaith asked, addressing the Tripod sitting on the end of the table. "What was your estimation of the population and size of the hive?"

"As Amy said, the hive is vast. There's a huge central atrium, where the main opening forms the top of the dome as seen from outside, but the majority of the hive is underground, burrowed in. I spent hours wandering the corridors, virtually all of them lined with egg cells just waiting for occupants. I saw a few more Wirrn than Amy or Stanley, but they were spread out over the whole hive. By the vibration I'd say a population of two to three hundred is reasonable."

"And that central hole is the only exit?" Tildaith asked.

"The only one I was able to find, yes. However, I wouldn't put it past them to be able to burrow out quickly if need be."

The Doctor nodded, "Remember they buried themselves to escape your scans, that would only have taken seconds. And they managed to build that hive without anyone noticing. I doubt they've actually been here that long. It doesn't take Wirrn larvae long to grow."

"So how much time do you estimate we have?" Major Jensen asked.

"From egg, to larva, to pupated adult, going by the time the farmers were taken, I'd estimate less than 3 days before we have a new batch of several hundred fully pupated Wirrn. And it will only get exponentially larger from there, especially if they manage to deploy that satellite."

There was a tightening of features all around the table.

"So what is this plan of yours, Doctor?" Tildaith asked, leaning forward, bracing his arms on the table.

—————--

"The first thing we need to do is isolate the Wirrn -- get them all back into the hive," the Doctor said.

"How?" Rory said.

"With an electric fence," the Doctor said.

"Are you serious?" Amy asked, Dutch and Tildaith looked like she beat them to the question.

"Completely," the Doctor said. "We'll build an electric force bubble all around the hive, " he said, gesturing with his hands. "The Wirrn will be able to get in but not get out. We'll use an inverse polarized field based on the local ambient energy field." the Doctor said.

"In English, Doctor," Amy reminded him in a long-suffering tone.

"Oh, right, think of it as a two-way mirror. Those inside won't be able to get out, but those outside it will only detect the normal background radiation. They'll fly right through it and," he clapped. "Trapped!"

"So how do you make that work?" Tildaith asked, interested.

—————--

The Doctor walked around the table to the portable tech station. He waved at it in question and the chopper technician, used to it by now, got up and let him have it.

"In order for the field to project inwards but not outwards," the Doctor said, speaking to the whole room, "the force field projectors have to be inside the field."

"But that's not how force field projectors work," protested the Marine technician.

"That's not how _your_ field projectors work -- but then, yours aren't permeable from one side." 

The Doctor squashed himself down into the child-sized tech station.

"What we're going to need is this..." his fingers blurred over the keys -- a three-dimensional schematic built up under his fingers. The pieces constructed themselves on the screen, then assemble themselves into a single unit.

He sat back like a magician who had just conjured up an elephant. The two techs leaned forward in fascination. Rory noticed Tildaith was craning his head to see too -- but without being obvious about it.

"Hansen?" Tildaith asked.

The ginger haired chopper tech was staring over the Doctor's shoulder, pulling on her lip as she studied his schematics. She looked up. "It could work, sir."

Tildaith looked at his two second in commands, they looked dubious about trusting this odd grown-up, but they nodded.

"Very well, Doctor," Tildaith said. "What do you need?"

The Doctor swiveled around in the tech chair in delight. His fingers pointed in the air for emphasis. "I'll need three force field projectors, three hoverbikes, some wire mesh, and your daughter, Dutch."

*

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	21. Chapter 21

"Janet?" Dutch asked, surprised. "Why do you need her?"

"Because I like to save being electrocuted for those special occasions," the Doctor said. "Fortunately, this time, I have a local expert on tap who owes me a favor. Handy, eh?"

"Wait a minute, Doctor," Rory said from farther down the table. "You said the forcefield projectors have to be _inside_ the shield?"

"Yep."

"Doesn't that mean they have to be inside the hive?" Rory continued.

"Yes."

"Why is that a requirement?" Major Jensen asked. "Couldn't we simply project the field from a safe distance?"

"'Fraid not," the Doctor said more seriously. "It's a matter of compression. The field has to be drawn inward to stabilize, rather like using ropes to pull a dome down tight from the inside. Also, we don't know how large the hive really is. We're going to need to map it to ensure the field encompasses the whole hive. The best way to do that is to incorporate mapping sensors directly into the projectors."

"That still doesn't explain how you intend to get the projectors into the hive. I'm not sending my soldiers on a suicide mission," Tildaith said. "Even if we could fight our way in to set up the projectors the Wirrn would simply destroy them."

"Ah," the Doctor said. "That's where it gets dangerous,"

"How, dangerous?" Amy asked.

The Doctor looked at her. "We're going to get the projectors into the hive by dropping them down those suntubes you climbed out of."

"And someone is just going to mosey up to the hive and drop them in?" Rory asked sarcastically.

"No," the Doctor said, "We..."

"We won't be able to fire them in with that kind of precision, Doctor," Tildaith said. "Not with the stealth shields on. Even dropping them by parachute wouldn't work because of the backwash from the blades."

"That's why we're going in on hoverbikes," the Doctor said loudly, over them.

"Oh, no," Amy said with absolute conviction. She glared at the Doctor. "You are _not_ going near that hive on a hoverbike. You'd fall off and they'd snatch you and then where would we be?"

"I would not fall off!" the Doctor said indignantly.

"You are not going," Amy said right back.

"I'll go," Rory said.

"And me," Jeff said from across the table.

"And me," the Doctor said defiantly, glaring at Amy. She glared right back, although he noted she also had a tight grip on Rory's arm.

"No, Doctor," Tildaith said. "Amy is right. It's not going to be as simple as just chucking these things down a hole, is it?"

The Doctor grumbled under his breath, glaring around the room, before finally admitting. "No."

"For example," Tildaith said. "How do you intend to keep the Wirrn from finding the projectors and destroying them? If we just chuck them down those holes, they'll presumably fall out somewhere."

"We'll fit the field projectors with grappler balloons. Once they get halfway down... 'Sproing!'" The Doctor snapped his hands wide. "They'll wedge between the walls. The light will even refract around them. The Wirrn will never know they're there."

"But if they are emitting electromagnetic radiation won't the Wirrn be able to sense it?" the tech asked.

"No. The projectors will be shielded and the projection field works off the ambient natural background level of power in the air."

"So they won't be able to detect the projectors or the force field?" Tildaith asked.

"Oh yes," the Doctor said, "they'll sense the field. Kind of hard not to sense something when you fly headfirst into it."

"I thought the whole point was they wouldn't be able to detect it so they _will_ fly through it," Tildaith said.

"They'll be able to detect it from the _inside_ ," the Doctor said. "Do keep up."

"So why do we need Janet?" Rory asked.

"Because if we want to contain them we have to a have enough _force_ to contain them. It will take more power than portable generators can provide. We're going to have to tap into the city grid."

The Doctor sighed and ran both hands through his hair. "Once the projectors are deployed they'll map the hive and immediately set up the force field. Our incursion is very likely to stir up the hive. We need to have a power line already in place and a substation set up to handle the load.

"The riders will need to get in, place the projectors and get out before the the field activates. If the Wirrn get out and see what we're doing they could attack the substation, the riders, or even the power line we're going to have to lay around the hive to fuel the shield. It has to be a quick hit and run operation."

"Which you are not leading," Amy said again, adamantly.

"Yes, fine. Once we've got the field in place it will cut off communications from the Wirrn inside. The power line can be hidden in the grass, and with luck, the returning Wirrn won't realize anything's wrong until they're already trapped inside the field."

"And that's why you need Janet, to tap into the city grid for you," Dutch said.

"Yes."

"One problem, Doctor," Rory said."Your local expert happens to have a broken leg."

"Oh, no worries. She won't have to do any heavy lifting, and she'll have all these nice healthy soldiers to order around, she'll like that."

"Since you're talking about my daughter, yes she will." Dutch said.

—————

"Then that shouldn't be a problem," Tildaith said from the head of the table. "We're more a militia than a standing army, but we can get you the supplies you need. And our mandate allows us to recruit civilian specialists at need."

"Good!" The Doctor clapped and jumped up from his chair. "Let's get started."

—————

They all filed out of the conference room heading to their various tasks.

"I'll see about getting those supplies for you, Doctor," Tildaith said as he filed past. He consulted briefly with his seconds. Major Jensen and Captain Morris left to take care of the business of the taskforce, while the rest of them focused on the hive.

"Good, thank you," the Doctor said as he stopped to think.

"Sheriff Anderson," Tildaith called. "If you would like to come with me, it may go smoother to recruit your daughter with you there."

Dutch grinned, "Yes, it might at that."

"Dutch," the Doctor called. The sheriff turned. "Pardon me, Captain," the Doctor said, gently picking up the purplish pale Tripod who'd been plodding along beside him. "Sheriff, if you could give Schwillic a ride back to his ship at the spaceport I'd appreciate it. We don't have the supplies to care for him properly here. He needs rest and food."

The sheriff looked contrite not to have noticed. "Of course, Doctor. I apologize Captain. It never occurred to me..."

"It's all right, Sheriff. I was pleased to be of assistance," the weary Tripod said from the cradle of the Doctor's arm. "I'm just sorry we were unable to save the Kitterangs. But I would be relieved to be returned to my ship now."

"Of course." The sheriff held up his burly young arms to take the Tripod but Amy beat him to it.

She took the squashy little alien from the Doctor's arms and hugged him tightly. He squeaked, but he wrapped all three tendrils around her as far as they'd go. "I'm going to miss you, Schwillic," she said, tears standing in her eyes.

The alien turned faintly yellow with embarrassment, but he hugged her back weakly.

"So will I," Stanley said, appearing at her side. He took one of the leg ends and shook it awkwardly in a handshake. "It was an honor to know you."

"And you," the tripod said. He pulled back his tendril and tapped Amy on the chest. "You'll keep this one out of trouble, won't you?" he asked Stanley with a trace of humor.

Stanley laughed, a little tearily. "I'll try."

Amy snorted, then gently handed the weary alien to the Sheriff. Dutch nodded, bowed, and turned to follow the Colonel.

"Right then!" Amy said, taking a big breath and bracing herself. She turned to Rory. "I want a word with you," she said determinedly and dragged him off to the side of the entrance hall.

The Doctor watched them go, but didn't follow. He turned back to the skinny, red-haired boy. "So, Amy says you're good with electronics."

"Of course I am," Stanley said with casual teenage arrogance, surreptitiously wiping his nose on his sleeve. The Doctor grinned.

"I could use your help programming the sensors for the force projectors," the Doctor said. "That is, unless you'd prefer to go home?"

"What?" the boy looked up at him in outrage. "After all those things have done?" He waved his bandaged arm at the deserted mansion. "Hell no. Lead on."

"Hah! Good man," the Doctor clapped him on the shoulder and led him outside. "Although I should probably warn you. I rewired your tracker board."

They walked out into the sunlight. Leaving Amy and Rory arguing alone in the hall.

—————

Twenty minutes later the Doctor and Stanley were busy stripping down the sensor equipment at the edge of the airfield. They were sitting on a canvas on the tarmac, an army field tent stretched over them to keep out the sun, components strewn all around them.

Jeff walked up with a tall, lanky blond Marine beside him. "Doctor, this is Corporal Peterson, he's volunteered to ride the other hoverbike."

The Doctor looked up at this pronouncement, then looked quickly around. Sure enough there were still reporter cameras whizzing around them.

"Does he understand what the duty entails?" he asked, deliberately vague.

"Yes, I explained. He has experience on hoverbikes."

"And you, Jeff?" the Doctor said, looking up at the brown-haired boy from under his lashes.

Jeff stiffened and stood up straight. "I've placed in the Land County Hoverbike Racing Championships three years in a row, Doctor. You're not likely to find anyone better qualified," he said with fierce dignity.

The Doctor grinned at the deputy's outraged pride. "Can the sheriff spare you?" he asked, brushing components off his lap and getting to his feet. He had to duck under the Feyanoran-height tent.

Jeff relaxed. "Major Jensen has pretty much taken over here at the farm. It'll be a relief to know there's some way I can contribute."

"It won't be safe," the Doctor pointed out.

"When is life ever?" Jeff replied.

The Doctor grinned, one of those completely open boyish grins that made him look far younger than his years.

"Well I'm glad somebody's happy," Rory said, walking up to join them.

The Doctor looked past him. "Where's Amy?"

Rory jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. "She said she was going to try to find a shower big enough to accommodate her. One of the female Marines said she could clean her clothes for her."

The Doctor nodded, then looked sternly down at Rory.

Rory glared right back. "I'm going, Doctor," he said implacably.

"You don't even know how to ride a hoverbike," the Doctor pointed out.

"I'll learn."

"You'll be in danger."

"And Amy wasn't? They took her, tortured her, and forced her to run for her life," he said, his jaw tight. "I need to do this."

The Doctor studied him for a long moment, working his jaw. He nodded and clapped the younger man on the shoulder. Rory sagged with relief.

"Jeff, Corporal, take him," he shoved Rory toward them companionably. "See how much you can teach him about riding hoverbikes. Although," he held up a finger, and grinned. "I prefer it not be a crash course."

Rory groaned and rolled his eyes. He followed the two boys.

—————

Tildaith was as good as his word, and less than an hour later the Doctor, Stanley, and all their equipment found themselves bundled up by a troop of efficient, short Marines and ensconced in the conference room with all the equipment they could want.

The two techs, including the one from the chopper, had been assigned to assist them, and within a couple of hours, (the Doctor feeling the press of Time against the back of his neck every second) they had managed to cobble together three force field projectors, each one looking like a giant, ten inch, horse-pill, wrapped in an overlapping cocoon of heavy wire mesh.

Captain Morris, Colonel Tildaith, Janet, Rory, and the other two hoverbike riders stood around the table and studied them. Dutch was off in the communication's room, fielding reports from the sheriff's offices on the edges of his jurisdiction, trying to piece together a list of how many Wirrn were outside the hive.

"That's a forcefield projector?" Janet asked. She was standing on a blue flexcast that supported her lower leg with a compression brace top and bottom, wearing her lineman coveralls, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"Yep," the Doctor said. "All we have to do is drop three of these down the hive solar shafts, and..." He buzzed one of the pills with his sonic screwdriver and the mesh exploded outward with a deafening pop. Everyone jumped.

The steel mesh had expanded to form a spherical cage all around the projector. The mesh edges overlapped like the petals of a flower, the projector pill suspended in its center by spring steel stems. The cage was about four feet in diameter, larger than the diameter of the hole they'd pulled Amy out of.

The Doctor leaned over the table and compressed the cage back downward with a grunt. The mesh leaves folded inward around themselves like a child's expandable toy, until they once again lay in a multilayered cocoon around the pill at its heart.

The Doctor wiped the sweat off his forehead and pocketed his sonic screwdriver.

"So what do want me for?" Janet asked. "It won't do any good to run a power line to those things, if they're going to be in the hive the Wirrn will just cut them."

"No, these will draw their power from an induction loop around the hive," the Doctor said. "What I need from you, is this," He pulled out a large-scale photo flimsy and laid it out on the table. He pointed. "There's a high tension power line that runs right past the hive, only four miles away. I noticed it when we were on the hive rescuing Amy. I suspect the Wirrn have tapped it for their own power needs, for that factory of theirs. It may be why they chose to build the hive here. I need you to find that tap and see if we can use it for our own purposes, and if not, tap the line yourself and set up a control station to run a high power line to the hive."

Janet pulled the flimsy around to herself. It was a color transparent overlay showing a view of the hive, with the towers of the high power line in the distance.

"That's the main rural line from Landing to Jacobs City," she mused to herself, nibbling on her lower lip. She looked up. "There was some mention of Marines I could order around?" she asked.

The Doctor grinned, and spread his arms wide, indicating the army around them.

Colonel Tildaith chuckled. "All the Marines you want, Ma'am."

Janet rolled up the flimsy. "Then let's get started."

*

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	22. Chapter 22

"Not a bad patch job," Janet said, studying the cable that came off of the metal tower at their side. "Somebody knew what they were doing."

"Amy said one of the Wirrn she saw was wearing fertilizer factory overalls. It's possible the person who was converted had electrical training," the Doctor said.

Janet looked up at him in the fading sunlight. He saw her puzzled expression, "The Wirrn grubs can convert a human directly into a Wirrn, when they do, the new Wirrn retains its human knowledge. And we know they must have had at least a few grubs to help them build that hive." He shrugged.

Janet shook her head, her ponytail flopping. "The more I hear about these things the less I like them," she said.

The Doctor grinned, remembering Dutch saying much the same. Like father like daughter.

"Anyway," she said, struggling to her feet and dusting off her knees. The Doctor helped her up. "This cable doesn't have anywhere near the capacity we need. And that's a high voltage direct current line." She waved at the skeletal metal tower high above them. "I don't know what those bugs are using, but we're going to need a converter.”

She kicked at the cable with her good foot. "You want me to disconnect this?" she asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, so far they have no idea what we're up to. I'd prefer to keep it that way." He looked out toward the sunset. The waves of wheat rippled in the evening breeze, the electrical lines sang in the wind hundreds of feet over their heads.

He'd hoped they'd be able to get this done today. Time pressed down on him, the longer it took, the closer the Wirrn came to taking over this beautiful world. But the universe stops for no man, not even a Time Lord. The world would turn, night would fall.

"Have you seen all you need here?" he asked.

Janet nodded. She was looking out over the plain in the opposite direction, toward the hump-shaped dome rising out of the fields not nearly far enough away. She was wearing a baseball cap, her blond ponytail poking out the back.

The Doctor grinned at the picture of her. Somehow, wherever there where humans, there were baseball caps. He'd met versions of Janet on every human-occupied world he'd ever visited. Smart, spunky, sassy women who could hand him his head in a heartbeat, with a practical streak a mile wide. She turned away from the hive and looked up at him. "You really think we can do this?" she asked.

He looked down at that innocent, little-girl face and felt something clench in his chest. "Oh yes," he said roughly. For worlds full of Janets he could do anything. He cleared his throat and grinned. "No problem."

—————

They walked back to the sheriff's ATV through the trampled wheat of their initial passage. The last rim of sun fell below the horizon behind them, bathing the white shell of the craft a bloody red.

The Doctor helped Janet clamber inside.

"You get what you need?" Dutch said from the pilot's seat. He'd parked the ATV near the base of the transmission tower, but there was also a military chopper covering them from a few miles farther off, so as not to alert the Wirrn.

"Yeah," Janet said, stumping up to the cockpit and planting a smacking kiss on her father's cheek. He grinned. "Get us out of here. My leg's itching like a sonnabitch and we've got supplies to order."

He tugged affectionately on her ponytail. "Yes, ma'am."

The Doctor dogged the hatch and they restrained in. Dutch lifted them off and flew back along the transmission lines going north. As dusk fell, all of them kept a leery look out the windows for wasps.

—————

While the Doctor was off with Janet, Rory learned how to ride a hoverbike.

The "skids" as he was told they were sometimes called, were completely flat-bottomed, and skimmed over the ground like a maglev train. It was like trying to learn to ride a banana skin.

Hand controls, shifting weight, compensating for speed, height, center of gravity, and angle of momentum took a lot more effort than he'd anticipated.

According to Jeff the military hoverbikes were lumbering monsters compared to the sleek racing hoverbikes he was used to. But Rory still felt oversized, like he was riding a child's dirtbike.

"Remember," Jeff said. "This isn't like a car. You're flying. You don't turn, you bank. Feel the movement, let your body control the turn."

Feet flat on the runnerboards, hands sweaty on the handlegrip controls, Rory twisted the handlebars for power and slid forward. He gathered speed, rushing out along the edge of the tarmac, he shifted his weight and moved farther away from the concrete toward the dirt border edging the fields. The wind whipped past his hair, roaring in his ears, as soldiers and spacecraft flashed past on his right.

Jeff was pacing him on another hoverbike and yelled over, “Make a left turn!”

Rory eased back on one handle and urged forward with the other, he leaned sideways into the turn. The hoverbike went one direction, Rory went the other. With a yell he flew over the handlebars, dirt and wheat flashed past below him, he instinctively ducked, tucked his head in, and landed on his shoulder, rolling through the wheat in a painful somersault. He flopped to a stop on his back, a last mocking shower of grain heads pattered down on him as if the farm was laughing at him.

Jeff glided up on his hoverbike. “You okay?”

Rory just lay there and ached for a minute. “Yeah,” he finally said, getting his breath and heartbeat back.

“Fine. Up you get. Next time, lean the _other_ way when you turn. And don’t punch up so much on your outside throttle,” Jeff said.

Rory groaned his way up to his feet, dusted the wheat off his vest and went to fetch the hoverbike which was floating serenely a few yards away.

—————

Rory ached in every bone, dinner had been tasteless he was so tired, and he looked forward to crawling into some bed somewhere and passing out. As soon as he checked on Amy.

The Marine who had cleaned Amy’s clothes had directed him to the mansion laundry. A few inquiries had directed him up to this bedroom, off a corridor which the Marines were using as barracks.

He opened the door and found her asleep, curled up on her side in a too-short Feyanoran bed, wrapped only in towels.

He stopped in the doorway and just looked at her.

She'd been so annoyed with him that he'd volunteered to ride one of the hoverbikes.

But how could he not?

She looked so innocent lying there, her red hair drying in a tangle, long legs curled up, the towel doing double duty as one of her usual miniskirts. Her arm was still bandaged, there were dark bruises under her eyes.

He set her cleaned clothes down on a chair by the door and backed out quietly, closing the door behind him. There was still time to get in some more practice driving the hoverbike.

—————

Knowing that there was no way to set up the substation at night, without the lights warning the Wirrn something was up. Janet had her parts and supplies delivered to the farm by military ATV.

She spent the night drilling the Marines on what went where and how to efficiently assemble the substation, once dawn gave them some light.

The Doctor spent the night poking into everything and getting in everyone's way until Janet chased him off like a hound out of a hen coop.

Rory practiced on his hoverbike, riding circles around the farm tarmac in the floodlights until the Doctor physically dragged him off of it and sent him to bed.

Janet was finally satisfied and sought her own bed, camping out in the ATV with her father, and allowing the Marines to find theirs.

—————

Deep in the night, when everyone else was asleep, a lone hoverbike sped through the fields below the electrical transmission line from Landing to Jacobs City.

The Doctor pulled the hoverbike to a stop in the moonlight at the foot of the high tension electrical tower where they'd found the Wirrn's splice-in.

He settled the hoverbike in the wheat, dismounted and looked around, keeping an ear open for the sound of Wirrn wings.

The stars were brilliant, sharing the sky with a full gibbous moon. The silvery shadows of the tower stretched like some giant wavering spider over the wheat fields, and a sweet, clean, night breeze ruffled his hair.

He stood for a moment in the solitude and tipped his head back, closing his eyes, feeling the soft wind blow around him, the drowsy night sounds of insects and wheat, the peaceful calm of starshine.

He smiled.

With a soft clap of his hands he turned and unstrapped the contraption on the back of the hoverbike, he set it carefully on the ground. He pulled a hammer and stake out of the toolbox and pounded the large stake into the ground at the edge of the wheat field.

He took the contraption he'd brought along, tied one end of it to the stake, and set the blocky, mechanical-dog looking device trundling along into the stalks.

*

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	23. Chapter 23

Dawn dawned to find everyone standing in line out of the mansion kitchen door, awaiting their cup of coffee and sweet roll. Janet was whipping her soldiers into order, packing all their gear onto three stealth shielded choppers. The choppers would drop their loads, then stand off as guards, while the others set up the substation.

Rory, Jeff, and Corporal Peterson checked their hoverbikes, and lashed the force projectors to the footboards between their feet, double checking that the bikes were working properly.

Colonel Tildaith conferred with Major Jensen about deployments once the shield was up.

Stanley was helping in the kitchen.

Amy wandered down the main stairs to find the Doctor pacing the guest hall, alternately gesticulating to himself to emphasize some internal thought and taking bites out of the sweet roll in the gesturing hand.

"What's got you all wound up?" she asked as she stepped down the last of the stairs.

"What?" He looked so startled that the childlike look of surprise on his face sent her pealing with laughter.

She took the half-eaten roll out of his hand and took a bite. "Mmm. That's good. Where can I get one?"

He took his roll back with an irritable scowl and waved toward the kitchen.

She snagged him by the sleeve and dragged him down the back stairs to the kitchen.

She spied Stanley doling out rolls. She waved her arms, careful of the ceiling. "Stanley! Starving grown-up here!"

He turned and stared at her and gave her a mock grumpy scowl. "You're always starving." But he picked up one of the thermoses intended for the chopper crews and a couple of danishes and brought them over to her.

"How's morale?" the Doctor asked as he polished off his own roll, licking the icing off his long fingers.

"Pretty good," Stanley said. He set the thermos on the end of the counter and handed Amy one of the danishes, taking a bite out of the other and unscrewing the top of the thermos. He handed the whole thing to Amy, it was about the size of a bottle of pop in her hand, and steam rose out. She sniffed, then took a swallow.

"Coffee!" She looked at Stanley. "You said you didn't have any caffeine."

"They're hybrid beans, naturally decaffeinated," the Doctor said. "Caffeine doesn't sit well with the Feyanoran biology."

Amy stared down at the twelve year old looking teenager and shrugged. She took a drink. "Not bad."

"So," the Doctor said. "Morale?"

"Everybody's calm, everyone knows what to do. It's all organized." The teenager shrugged. "As long as there's no hiccups it should all go smooth."

Amy set her coffee down slowly, she turned and looked at the Doctor. "Yeah," she said. "Smooth."

—————

Tildaith called them all together immediately after breakfast for one last planning session.

"You did _what_?!" Amy demanded.

"I cobbled together a mechanical cable runner and set it loose to lay cable to the hive," the Doctor said calmly.

"That was damn risky, Doctor, going out there by yourself!" Tildaith scolded him.

The Doctor shrugged and threw a defiant look at Amy, "It was less risky for one man on a bike to sneak out there than to send a whole troop. They never saw me, and with the runner running _under_ the wheat, in the moonlight they'll never see it. The line will be in place by the time the substation is ready."

"Won't they detect the runner?" the chopper tech asked. "What about electromagn..."

"Shielded," the Doctor interrupted her.

"How did you fit four miles of cable in a device that fits on the back of a hoverbike?" Janet asked.

"Compression field." the Doctor said.

"For that matter," Dutch said, arms folded over his chest suspiciously. "How did you get all the way there and back in one night on a hoverbike?"

"Ah, well, hoverbikes can actually go a lot faster than most people can handle them," the Doctor said, scratching the back of his neck.

"But you can?" Tildaith asked, deadpan.

"I have very fast reflexes."

"However it was done, "Janet interrupted, "I was worrying about how we were going to lay a line that far without the Wirrn noticing. This actually solves that problem."

The Doctor bowed to her. "Thank you."

"You could at least have _told_ one of us!" Amy said.

The Doctor shrugged. "You were all asleep."

Rory snorted in disgust.

"If you are all done mother-henning me," the Doctor said. "Can we get back to the plan?"

Tildaith waved a mocking hand for him to continue.

The Doctor pointed down at the large, high resolution photo of the hive spread across the conference room table. They could clearly see the texture of the wheat all around the hive and the position of all the suntube holes.

The Doctor took out a marker and circled three of the holes, forming a triangle. "Jeff, Rory, Corporal, these are the holes you need to target." He wrote a name beside each hole. "They will provide the best coverage of the hive for both mapping and force field coverage." Rory and the others leaned forward over the table to study their assignments.

"If, for some reason you can't reach these holes, just chuck them in whatever hole is handiest and get out." He saw the uncomfortable looks everyone was giving him. "It won't be optimal but it will still work.

"Peterson," he turned to the corporal. "You'll go in first, Once you've deposited your projector, you'll need to sweep your hoverbike down over this spot." He drew a red X over a spot just to the south of the hive. "That's where the the runner will be staked down. I've fitted your hoverbike with an electromagnet. Jeff's bike is too small, and Rory doesn't have enough experience, so it had to be you. Your hoverbike will automatically pick up the cable spool and you need to make at least one full sweep around the hive to lay it out. Jeff and Rory will provide a distraction if you need it." The Doctor looked at Jeff and Rory, they nodded.

"As soon as you've completed the loop, hit the electromagnet to detach the spool and leave. High tail it out of there, any direction except west, we don't want to draw the Wirrn's attention to Janet's group or the power line.

"Once the forcefield activates, circle around and rendezvous with us at the substation. We move out as soon as Janet gives the word."

He clapped his hands. "Any questions?"

—————

They all scattered to their tasks. The Doctor and Amy followed Dutch and Janet to Dutch's ATV. The supply choppers were finishing loading the substation equipment, and the tarmac was busy with early morning soldiers scrambling to their assignments.

Amy looked at the growing munitions pile beside the wheat silos with dismay. "Colonel Tildaith has been busy. And he didn't exactly tell us what he's been planning, did he?" she observed.

"No," the Doctor said quietly, following her gaze to the mountain of ammunition. "It's his job to protect this planet, any way he has to. He..."

The Doctor cut off as two whiz ball cameras suddenly swooped down to get a closeup of his face, another swirled around Amy, swishing right past her face, blowing her hair in her eyes, it stung. "Ow! I thought the reporters were all gone!"

"Apparently not all of them," the Doctor said. He waved his hand negligently and stalked on, "Just ignore them." Two steps later he changed his mind, turned back, whipped out his sonic screwdriver, and buzzed it. The two whiz balls, popped, coughed, and fell with a clack.

"Ah! That's better!" The Doctor grinned like a loon, he twirled his sonic screwdriver and repocketed it. "I was getting tired of having to watch what I say."

Amy just shook her head. "You're incorrigible."

—————

The Doctor followed Janet and Dutch into the ATV. He turned in the hatch. "You'll be okay alone?"

"What alone?" Amy said. "I'm here, Rory's here, I'm in the middle of an army. Go, go, I'll be fine."

—————

The Doctor directed Dutch back to the electrical tower they had visited the day before. He showed Janet where he'd staked down the cable while the stealth shielded choppers landed their load nets in the field around them. It was a somewhat surreal experience since the nets only appeared once the choppers took off again. And a dozen half-pint soldiers seemed to walk out of thin air as they disembarked.

Janet left her second in command, a boy named Grover, setting up the substation equipment while she and the Doctor ascended in the ATV, trailing cable, to tap into the power line overhead. 

It was necessary to use the ATV, because the choppers couldn't get close enough to the power lines with their rotor blades, and military ATVs were too large. The Doctor had offered his expertise to be Janet's technical backup, so she wouldn't have to rely on untrained Marines. 

He had a few hair-raising minutes as she clipped her belt harness to each side of the ATV doorway, leaned out on the extended platform over a couple of hundred feet of thin air and metal girders, and proceeded to casually tap into enough power to fry an elephant.

He handed her tools and kept his mouth shut. _He_ was a nervous wreck. But the girl was a consummate professional and her father had nerves of steel and a steady hand on the controls of the hovering ATV.

The Doctor left them assembling the substation in the morning light, with a platoon of Marines who were busy setting up gun placements and camouflage netting.

As the Doctor flew back to the farm on one of the supply choppers he looked back through the window, the substation was already invisible, merely another hump in the undulating wheat fields.

—————

The Doctor hopped out of the chopper back at the farm airfield and trotted off to the mansion. He felt like he needed to be doing more, working faster. But it was still barely mid-morning. Things were actually going well. The tarmac was practically deserted, with most of the choppers and ATVs out on patrol and scouting for Wirrn. 

He found Amy assisting Stanley and the chopper tech, Hansen, in the communications room. Stanley was sitting in the corner muttering to himself as he tinkered with his tracker board.

He looked up when he saw the Doctor poke his head in the short doorway. "You did a right job buggering up this board!" he groused.

The Doctor grinned and sauntered in. He looked down over Stanley's shoulder. "What are you trying to do?"

"I think I've figured out your sensor modifications, now I'm trying to reconfigure them to detect Wirrn instead of human." Stanley stuck his screwdriver behind his ear, closed the back of the board and turned it over, adjusting the sliders. "The range is lousy without the components we used for the projector detectors, but if I can map it out, I can send it to the other Sheriff's stations and they can reconfigure their equipment to search."

The Doctor's eyebrows flew up, impressed. He left the boy to his puttering.

He turned to Amy who was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a coffee table she'd apparently borrowed from one of the other rooms. She'd obviously given up trying to squeeze her long legs under the childsized Feyanoran desks. Her coffee table was covered with stacks of paper and photos. She was sorting them into different piles, entering notes on an electronic pad with a stylus.

"Any luck?" the Doctor asked.

The copper haired tech at the communication's console turned around and pulled her headphones down around her neck, she leaned over and handed Amy another stack of readouts. "Not much so far," she said with a shake of her head. "We're still looking." She turned back to her console and the incoming calls.

The Doctor looked down at Amy. Amy waved her stylus at the piles around her. "I'd expected to find more. We've got reports from all the other Sheriff's stations, local police, emergency crews, outlying farms, and factories, and shipping companies who run regular flights between Landing and Jacobs City. Nobody's seen anything. Or not much. Hints, clues, but nothing solid. If it weren't for the satellite photos I'd wonder if we were chasing phantoms."

"What about the forestry services?" the Doctor asked, picking up the satellite photos and flipping through them.

"They've actually been our best lead," Amy said. "They've noticed an unusual reduction in herds lately. Mutilated animals, and a rise in stampedes. But it's all after the fact, only a few of them have actually seen anything that might have been a Wirrn. Our patrols here have seen more than anyone else. And they've only seen a few."

"Well," the Doctor said, "It is a lot of ground to cover, millions of acres." He tossed the photos back on the table.

Amy sighed and straightened them.

She looked up and saw him frowning. "What's wrong? I know it seems weird, I mean, I know I saw Wirrn going in and out while I was there. But the fewer Wirrn outside the hive the better chance we have of getting them all. That's good isn't it?"

"Yes, yes, yes, it's good." He pulled on his lower lip.

—————

"No, no, no, no. Don't _hide_!" the Doctor said, walking up to Jeff and Rory at the base of the airfield tower. They were all expecting the go-ahead from Janet any minute and the bike riders were getting prepared.

From somewhere the Marines had scared up a pair of wheat-colored camouflage fatigues large enough to fit Rory. Jeff was busy painting camouflage patterns on Rory's face to help him blend in with the wheat fields.

The Doctor stalked up and reached past Rory to thumb the controls of his hoverbike. The mimetic surface changed from camouflage gold, to eggshell white to bright blue with red racing stripes.

"There," the Doctor said. "Much better!"

He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, licked it, and started scrubbing the camouflage paint off Rory's face. Rory grimaced and turned his head away but the Doctor followed him.

"Be big, bold, _loud_!" The Doctor said, making the words big with gestures of his hands. "You go zooming in decked out like this and you may as well paint, 'I'M SNEAKING!' on your forehead." He stopped scrubbing and handed Rory the handkerchief.

"Predators are designed to detect motion, and you can't hide that, so don't hide at all. Go in roaring! Swoop around, pop wheelies, ramp over the hive. Whoop it up!" he said, gesturing grandly.

"But won't they notice us then?" Rory said, wiping off the rest of the ruined makeup.

"Yes! But better to be noticed as a fool than as a threat!" the Doctor said.

"Is that why you do it?" Rory asked.

"Do what?" the Doctor asked in perfect innocence, hands in his pockets.

"Never mind."

"If we go in whooping it up like fools, Doctor," Jeff said. "They're going to notice us."

"Yes, but they're going to notice you anyway. If you go in looking like you're up to no good they're more likely to try to stop you. If you go in looking like a bunch of guys just out for a bit of weekend fun, there's a chance, not a big one, but a chance that they'll lie low and hope you'll go away."

"And if they attack us instead?" Rory said, tossing the ruined handkerchief aside.

The Doctor looked sad and held out his hand solemnly to shake Rory's. Rory automatically took it, feeling grim, then jumped as something shocked his palm.

The Doctor laughed and held up his hand, showing the electric buzzer underneath his ring. He wiggled his fingers. "I amped these up. Wirrn are susceptible to electric shock. If one attacks you, all you have to do is grab them, and this should stun them, at least long enough for you to get away." He worked the ring off and tossed it to Rory, Rory caught it. "I made one for each of you," the Doctor said. He tossed two more to Jeff.

Rory looked down at the child's buzzer in his hand. He looked up at the Doctor.

"Don't you take _anything_ seriously?" he asked.

The Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "I'm serious about what I do, Rory." He grinned. "Not necessarily the way I do it."

—————

Lunch came and went with no word, but finally Colonel Tildaith announced that Janet had declared the substation up and ready to go.

Rory had been too nervous to eat, so Amy and the Doctor walked back down to the airfield to see off the hoverbike chopper.

"What's with Corporal Peterson?" Amy asked, spying the lanky blond racing for the chopper as they followed the now familiar footpath. 

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked.

"He looks like a teenager, thirteen or fourteen. Stanley's seventeen and he doesn't look that old."

"I believe Peterson's twenty-eight."

Amy threw up her hands in disgust, "Colonel Tildaith has got to be older than that, but he still looks twelve! You said Feyanorans didn't enter puberty. What gives?"

The Doctor smiled at her and sauntered along, donning that "teacher" look she found so annoying. "Peterson's one of the exceptions that proves the rule. The average Feyanoran can't produce enough hormones to trigger puberty, but a few, a very few, actually manage to produce enough to start the change."

"So he'll grow up? Like a normal human?" Amy asked.

"There's nothing abnormal about the Feyanorans, Amy. But, no, he's as old as he'll probably ever look. It's like you and me. You're in your 20s, I'm in my 900s, but we look about the same age."

"That's because you're a Time Lord."

"No. That's because we have different chemicals controlling our development. I've looked considerably older than you on occasion. And it's the same with individuals of the same species, not everyone ages at the same rate or exhibits the same levels of gender traits."

"Hormones," she said.

"The building blocks of life," the Doctor said with satisfaction.

Amy got a naughty look in her eye, she opened her mouth.

"Don't say it," the Doctor warned.

She stuck her tongue out at him. "You're no fun."

"Save it for Rory." He nodded toward the choppers. "There he is."

—————

"You don't have to do this," Amy said, straightening the collar of his puffy vest, not looking at him.

"Yes I do," Rory said, taking her hands and urging her to look at him. "We already argued about this, you know my reasons. I can't just let them get away with what they did to you. Besides, if I can prevent even one of these little people from being hurt I've got to do that, right?" He tilted his head to look into her downcast eyes.

She cocked a look up at him and smiled softly.

"That's my girl." He wrapped his long arms around her and she gave him a big hero kiss as a sendoff.

He turned and saluted the Doctor. "Doctor."

"Rory." He saluted back in his usual mocking fashion. "You be careful."

"Bit late for that." Rory gave him another salute and trotted off. Jeff pulled him into the chopper, the door sealed and they lifted away.

"And you wondered why I chose him," Amy said.

—————

Jeff, Rory, and Peterson sat astride their hoverbikes in the chopper, lined up, pointing at the door. They were all decked out in civilian gear, the bikes dialed over to commercial colors.

The chopper was flying in under stealth mode, Rory saw the mound of the Wirrn hive appear over the horizon through the cockpit window.

Captain Morris signaled them to get ready, her platinum blond hair showing under her combat helmet. Rory's hands got sweaty. He gripped the handlebars, reviewing in his mind what Jeff had told him. The chopper wouldn't land when it dropped them off, they'd just hover low and open the doors. Rory looked at his controls, touching them in turn with his thumb, increase the vertical axis, apply forward velocity, lean back slightly to keep the nose up until he hit bottom.

He inspected the projector egg strapped onto the runner board between his feet, then looked up and checked Jeff and Peterson. They were running the same mental checklist.

"Now!" Captain Morris said, dropping her hand. The Marines slid open the side hatch and the wind from the rotor blades slammed through the door. Jeff was up and off, sliding out of the chopper with practiced ease, Peterson followed with a well placed bump and trailed him out over the fields.

Rory gulped, gave it some gas and closed his eyes. He felt the jolt and his stomach flip as he dropped the few feet to the wheat fields, then the forward glide as he accelerated away from the chopper. He opened his eyes. The invisible chopper lifted away behind him, only detectable by the backwash of air.

It was just the three of them now. Jeff and Peterson were already several hundred yards ahead of him. He leaned into the handlebars and sped to catch up.

—————

It was actually very peaceful gliding over the wheatfields on the silent hoverbike. The grain slapped at the base of the skid if he flew too low, and he found himself doing little swishing turns just to hear the waterlike sounds. It was almost like surfing, the waving ocean of wheat below him and cloudless blue sky overhead.

The chopper had dropped them six miles from the hive, it was only a few minutes drive on the hoverbikes, but he could see Jeff and Peterson were taking the Doctor's advice ahead of him, doing circles and weaving back and forth across each other's trail. They were quiet, but to anyone watching it would just look like a bunch of guys out for some fun.

Rory really, really hoped no one was watching.

The hive got bigger, looming toward them on the horizon. Rory nervously scanned the skies over it for Wirrn.

Three miles. Two miles. Rory swung wide to the left, even as Jeff paused to do a donut and Peterson pulled ahead of them, positioning himself for his run.

Then they were there. Rory watched as Peterson rode straight up and over the hump of the hive, casually dropping something as he cleared the top. One away. Rory breathed a sigh of relief. He swung his hoverbike back around to the right, coming at the hill on a tangent, his assigned hole was to the west of the opening, about one third of the way down from the top. He saw Jeff skid his bike around in a curve in the wheat and head for the opposite side of the hill where his own hole was. None of them were whooping yet, there were no Wirrn to fool and they weren't going to draw attention to themselves unless necessary.

Rory hit the edge of the hive and tilted upward, the skid slid soundlessly up the grass-covered hill they'd rescued Amy from only yesterday. His heart beat painfully in his chest, he was trying to look everywhere at once, his eyes were instinctively drawn to the sky, and the top of the hill where the opening to the hive lay, yet at the same time he was trying to scan the ground for his drop hole. There seemed to be a lot more holes than he remembered.

He leaned down and jerked loose the belt latch holding his forcefield projector in place, he fumbled it up into one hand, trying to drive and not drop it at the same time. He slowed down unconsciously, trying to juggle driving, the egg, and keeping an eye on the skies. His hole loomed up on the curve of the hill he was partially circling, he dug his fingers into the metal weave around the projector and started lifting it to the side, bike sliding forward, reminding himself to go around the edge of the hole to avoid losing lift. The wind sang up the side of the hill as he swung the projector out to the side in one hand, the grasses shushed in the breeze, then the wind died.

And he could hear the hot angry buzzing behind him.

He turned, every hair on his body stood straight up in primal fear. A Wirrn hovered over the opening of the hive, not a hundred feet away.

Something wasn't right. It looked mad, insane, its eyes red, its wings whirring. Strips of flesh hung off it, fluttering like the tattered remains of a shroud. It jerked around, trying to keep all the hoverbikes in sight, its antenna twitched. It locked its eyes on Rory, who realized he'd stopped above the hole. Swallowing convulsively on a dry mouth, he quietly loosed his fingers on the projector, under cover of his hoverbike, and let it fall down the hole, hoping the Wirrn couldn't see it.

The bug twitched, gave a primal scream, and dove. Rory gunned the bike but it was too late. The Wirrn slammed into him, wrapped all six legs around him and wrested him off his bike.

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	24. Chapter 24

Rory fell in a living clutching cage of chitinous legs. He and the Wirrn hit the ground rolling, Rory bounced between the iron hard legs and the hard leathery carapace. Each bounce poked him with the stiff insect hairs and scratched him with the barbed legs.

They rolled down the hillside. Rory fought to turn to face the insect, trying to get leverage for his feet to push and break the Wirrn's hold. The Wirrn's exoskeleton was covered with hanging strips of flesh. It looked like a fruit that had overgrown and split. Glistening, oily green carapace showed between the slits, rags of dead skin peeled off all over it. It was the most disgusting thing Rory had ever seen, especially this close.

They bumped down the hillside. The Wirrn stopped them rolling, and, lying on its side, reached down its head, its massive mandibles opened wide.

Clutched in the unbreakable bars of its legs, seeing that mouth reaching for his head, Rory yelled and rammed his ring against the Wirrn's side.

The Wirrn screamed and spasmed, scraping Rory against the stiff body hairs as the legs contracted. He was trapped within the beast's convulsions.

"Rory!" Jeff yelled.

Rory looked up and saw Jeff ramp his hoverbike up off the top of the hive, he twisted the bike sideways in midair and slammed the underside against the Wirrn's head.

The Wirrn knocked free of Rory's electric grip and its legs flew open, slinging Rory down the hillside.

Rory rolled and slid, he scrabbled at the thin grass and eventually stopped his slide.

"Get on your bike!" Jeff yelled. "Alex is almost done, we have to get off here!"

Rory scrambled for his bike, farther up the hill. Jeff turned his to watch, obviously desperate to get moving.

Rory grabbed his overturned hoverbike and wrenched it upright.

 _"Rory!"_ Jeff screamed behind him.

Rory felt a boulder slam into his back. He was catapulted over his hoverbike. He tucked his head, landed on his shoulder and rolled, coming up in a crouch, (who knew that falling off his hoverbike would be so instructive?)

A Wirrn loomed over him, the largest he'd seen. Gleaming green, shiny new, eyes red.

He didn't think. He reached behind his back, pulled the pistol from his waistband, and fired.

The Wirrn spun in a circle from the impact, lurched, but flew away.

The response was immediate.

The hive under his feet started buzzing like a kicked beehive.

 _Oh, I guess this is why the Colonel didn't start shooting yesterday,_ Rory thought in frozen dismay.

Rory tossed the gun and threw himself at his hoverbike. He gunned it even before his feet found the runner boards.

"Go, go, go!" he yelled at Jeff who was waiting for him down the incline.

The young deputy spun his bike on one foot and shot off down the hive heading for open fields.

The sound of angry wings compressed the air behind Rory.

—————

Rory looked over his shoulder and blanched, nearly twenty Wirrn, a whole flight, had erupted out of the hive.

He lay himself down on his handlebars to give the least wind resistance and _willed_ his bike faster.

He hit the bottom of the hive dome with a thump and shot off across the field hoping to get beyond the perimeter before the forcefield activated.

Something thumped the back of his hoverbike hard, bouncing him up and slewing him sideways.

He straightened out and shot off. He just went straight, trying to get as far away as fast as possible. Speed, speed, more speed. Jeff was in front of him about a hundred yards to the right - riding flat out.

He couldn't see Alex anywhere but in his rear view mirror he saw several of the Wirrn peel off in a wheeling turn, Rory hoped Alex had gotten the induction coil laid or they were toast.

He should have kept the gun.

Don't think about that, speed, speed, more speed. He urged the bike faster even thought the wheat was whipping by in a blur.

He could hear the heavy drone of Wirrn wings gaining behind him. He scrunched his neck down, feeling the ghostlike pressure of alien mandibles on the back of his neck.

The rearview mirror didn't show any Wirrn that close, but he loosed a hand from the handlebars and swept a fist behind his neck anyway, just in case.

The hoverbike wobbled, Rory screamed and grabbed for the handgrip. At this speed a sharp turn would kill him. The bike dipped, rattling through the wheat heads with a sound like machine gun fire.

Sharp wheat kernels peppered him, stinging his face, he blinked and resisted the urge to throw up a hand to shield his eyes. He wrestled the speeding hoverbike higher, not daring to slow down.

Suddenly the air was peppered with real machine gun fire.

A chopper decloaked in front of him, huge and black, zooming in over his head, gun turrets blazing, he caught just a glimpse of pale blond hair through the window as it swooped over him.

He yelled with relief.

From off to the side, beyond Jeff, another chopper appeared, and gunfire behind him to the east indicated at least one more had decloaked.

He didn't stop, he leaned forward and opened the throttle. He actually passed Jeff who had started to curve around toward the west and the substation.

Rory risked a look behind him.

Four military choppers and an attack ATV were herding the flight of Wirrn back toward the hive.

They weren't shooting them, though he was sure there was a temptation. They were simply using the gunfire to direct them back toward the hive.

A few Wirrn tried to peel off, but the attack ATV projected some sort of wide beam that bounced them back into the herd.

Rory looked forward, checked where he was going, it was all clear fields, he looked back.

The Wirrn, surrounded, fled back into the hive. There was no indication of the force field.

Rory felt his heart clench. If they'd failed...

The choppers and ATV peeled off as the last Wirrn disappeared back down into the hive opening. They retreated and cloaked.

Rory leaned into his curve and concentrated on getting to the substation as quickly as possible.

He didn't trust the Wirrn not to try again.

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	25. Chapter 25

Rory slid the hoverbike to a stop in the wheat beside the camouflage netting over the substation. Wheat stuck out of the netting at odd angles enhancing the camouflage. But he ignored it as Amy engulfed him in a hug.

"You idiot!" she swore at him while squeezing the breath out of him. "Are you all right?" she pulled back to look him over. He was dotted with wheat chaff, and covered with scratches, he probably looked worse than he felt. Although he wouldn't bet on what he'd feel like once the adrenaline wore off.

"Good job, Rory!" the Doctor said, and pounded him on the back. Rory felt an odd lump form in his throat, there was something unbelievably comforting in seeing that floppy haired, smiling figure in his bowtie.

"Yeah, thanks."

"Are you okay, Rory?" Jeff said, doffing his helmet and pushing his way through the chest-high wheat, his racing hoverbike parked behind him. "I thought for sure that last Wirrn had you!"

"So did I," Rory admitted. "If you hadn't yelled..."

Amy was patting at the back of his jacket. "Rory, turn around," she ordered.

"What?" She stepped behind him, he felt her hands on his shoulders, yanking his vest down his arms. "What are you doing?" he asked irritably, scowling. That last yank had proved he was going to have a bruise on his shoulder.

She stepped in front of him and held up his jacket. He frowned and rotated his shoulder. She turned the jacket around. There was a long slash across the back, puffy stuffing leaked out of the dark material.

He felt his legs turn to jelly.

"Whoa! Here you go." The Doctor grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side so he landed on a supply crate. His vision was suddenly blurry.

"How did that happen?" he asked weakly.

"A Wirrn hit the back of your bike just as you left the hive, didn't you know?" Jeff asked.

Rory shook his head.

The air compressed around them and flattened a large circle of wheat. Rory squinted his eyes against blowing chaff, and Colonel Tildaith and his ever-present tech walked out of nothing. The air compressed again and the invisible chopper lifted off.

"Are you all right, Rory?" Tildaith asked as he joined them.

"Yeah," Rory said, shaking his head in disbelief at his own stupidity. "Through no fault of my own. If I hadn't started shooting..."

The colonel laid a hand on his shoulder. "There's nothing else you could have done."

"I'm glad you were there," Rory said, looking up at that mature young face. "I didn't expect you."

Tildaith grinned, an unexpectedly charming grin. "What, you thought we'd just leave you out to dry?" He shook the large young man's shoulder companionably. He turned to the other two bike riders. "Jeff, Corporal, good job. Any damage?"

"No sir, thank you, sir," Jeff said, running a hand through his sweaty hair. Peterson saluted. Tildaith saluted back.

"I could use something to drink right about now though," the normally silent corporal said, revealing an unexpected country drawl.

"Good idea," Amy said. "This way, they've set up a canteen." She led the two off to a supply ATV tucked under one corner of the tent, a table had been set in front of it with water jugs and cups.

"So did it work?" Tildaith asked, turning to the Doctor who had already turned away and was surveying the hive through a pair of binoculars.

"Not sure yet," the Time Lord drawled.

Janet joined them, hearing the colonel's question. "They apparently got the induction loop set up all right. I don't know what it's doing, but it's drawing power."

—————

The camouflage net fluttered over their heads, occasional bits of wheat chaff fluttered down from the stalks weaved into the web. It was slightly cooler out of the direct sun, and the banks of electrical equipment formed an open air room on one side. Machine gun nests built of sandbags sat at each corner, covered by the edges of the camouflage nets, and manned by kevlar-clad and helmeted soldiers. Tall stands of wheat came right up to the net on all sides. It was a small, tense camp of soldiers and technicians. The hum of the wind and the power equipment were the only sounds.

They watched the hive for two hours before they had any confirmation. They scanned the area with binoculars, searching for any returning Wirrn. The Colonel had pulled the choppers back out of range, stealth shielded, and stationed far enough apart not to alert any returning Wirrn.

They watched through binoculars from the safety of the camouflage net covering the substation, as a Wirrn flew up out of the hive, hit the invisible forcefield with a crack of white light and fell back inside, stunned.

"Well, it works," Rory said, lowering his field glasses.

"Yep. Tell me again, Rory," the Doctor ordered as he peered through his binoculars.

"It was all ripped, torn, like it had grown too big and split its skin. Pieces were tearing off, it was really gross."

"So that's why they've been so quiescent," the Doctor said almost to himself.

"Quiescent? That thing was flipping insane!" Rory protested.

"Well, yes, but if he was molting you probably woke him up. Bound to be a bit cranky," the Doctor said, giving Rory an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

"Huh!" Rory grunted.

"Molting?" Amy asked.

"Shedding their skin, becoming larger. That fits in with what Gandhi told you, Amy. They come to a planet to breed, build a hive, lay their eggs, feed, and grow."

"Just what we need," Dutch said. " _Bigger_ wasps."

—————

"Wait a minute," Amy said. "I thought you said the chemicals here wouldn't let things grow."

The Doctor simply nodded his head subtly at Peterson, who was talking with Janet over by the power converters. Amy rolled her eyes, but nodded.

"It does explain why we've seen so few Wirrn in the past 24 hours," the Doctor continued. "If they've been molting they're probably all in the hive."

"Why am I hearing a "But," in that?" Tildaith asked.

The Doctor scratched his chin, "But, it means when they're done molting they're going to be bigger, fiercer, and probably hungry."

"They've been quite enough trouble already," Tildaith said, staring out at the hive with speculative grey eyes . "You think that shield will hold them?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Should do, can't say."

"Then we'll take advantage of the time we have." He turned back to the Time Lord. "Now what?"

"Now what what?" the Doctor asked.

Tildaith gave him a gimlet look. "You said 'First we have to get the Wirrn contained.' We have them contained. I assume you have a second stage to your plan.

"Not that it matters," the short colonel shrugged and crossed his arms, giving the Doctor an assessing look. "I went along with you because it was the logical choice. If you don't have a second phase I can always firebomb them. It will be even easier, since they're in a contained space which we can lob missiles into but which they can't get out of." He watched the Doctor.

The Doctor scowled. "You can't just firebomb them. That electrical field will stop any living thing getting out, but it won't stop fire. You'll set the wheat fields ablaze!"

"Which is why I'm waiting to hear the next phase of your plan," the colonel said calmly, piercing grey eyes intent.

"Simple," the Doctor said, straightening his jacket. "You want the Wirrn off your planet, they want a world where they can breed in peace. I say we give them one."

"How?" Tildaith asked.

"I'll just surround the hive with my ship and take them elsewhere. Quick and clean as pulling a tooth, no firebombing required."

"And they're just going to let you?" Dutch said.

"I hadn't actually intended to ask."

"Hang on, what do you mean 'surround them with your ship?' The whole hive? What kind of ship do you have?" Dutch asked.

"Ah, you'd have to see it to understand," the Doctor said.

"He can do it," Rory chimed in. He nodded when Dutch and Tildaith looked at him. Amy raise her eyebrows at them and smiled.

"Perhaps I'd better see this ship of yours," Tildaith said.

"Me too," Dutch said.

The Doctor clapped his hands and twirled. "I'd be delighted!" He strode off through the tent for the sheriff's ATV. "We'll take your vehicle, shall we sheriff?" he called jovially.

Amy and Rory grinned and ran to catch up.

—————

"Your ship is an old crate in an alley?" Dutch said in disbelief.

Brick buildings rose on either side. Paper and a light scattering of trash whirled in the dustdevils as the wind freshened. A thick layer of storm clouds muffled the early afternoon light. The air was heavy with the smell of damp earth and rain.

The Doctor patted the Tardis panels. "Don't pay any attention to him," he muttered affectionately. He fished out his key and opened the door with a flourish. "In you get!" Fat raindrops started pattering down. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

Amy and Rory bounced in, relieved to be home. Dutch and Tildaith followed more slowly.

"In, in, in," the Doctor herded them with shooing motions.

The two twelve year old officers stopped just inside the doors. The Doctor dodged past them and hopped up the stairs to the console.

"I'm off to change!" Amy said. She waved gaily behind her and started up the stairs.

Rory sidled toward the stairs. He bobbed a clumsy bow at the visitors. He pointed over his shoulder after Amy, "I'd better go and see to her arm," he said, turning to the Doctor.

The Doctor waved nonchalantly, already absorbed in his controls. Rory sprinted up the stairs.

"Now!" the Doctor said, clapping his hands and turning to his Feyanoran visitors. "I assume you want to know how I can fit the whole hive in here." He grinned and waved his hands in a "Ta-Da!" motion. "As you can see, it's bigger on the inside."

"I can see you've been holding out on us, Doctor," Dutch said, climbing the stairs. He was still looking around, but assessing now, rather than awestruck. He noticed the multiple staircases and doors that hinted at more than they could see.

"Interesting decor," Tildaith said as he followed his fellow officer up the stairs. He was still dressed in black kevlar, Dutch still wore his tan sheriff's uniform, and both men sported sidearms, yet here in the grown-up proportions of the Tardis, their resemblance to children was more pronounced than ever.

The colonel stopped at the edge of the console, it came up to his ribcage.

"You fly in this? These controls are primitive!" Tildaith said.

"Appearances can be deceiving," the Doctor said. "Besides, who wants a control board of buttons? That's boring. This you can really fly hands on!" he said with relish -- playing his hands over his controls.

"So how would you fit the whole hive in here?" Tildaith asked.

"Transcendent dimensions -- it can be as big as I need and..." the Doctor worked the controls. The Tardis groaned with her dematerialization sound -- Tildaith looked up in alarm -- apparently thinking something was broken.

The colonel's Jeep and startled driver materialized in the console room.

"Sir?" the driver asked nervously.

The Doctor hit more controls and the Jeep faded away.

"Don't worry, he's just outside. So, see? I can do it."

"Surely you don't want angry Wirrn rampaging through your ship?" Dutch said.

"Oh, no problem. I can seal them in their own dimensional bubble until we find a suitable planet," the Doctor said. "I can talk to them by scanner as easily as face-to-face. This Methuselah might be a problem, but that Gandhi sounds like a reasonable bloke."

"Very well, Doctor," Tildaith said. "We'll try it your way."

—————

Amy and Rory returned looking much cleaner and refreshed. Amy had changed into a pair of jeans and Rory sported a new jacket. Amy displayed her mended arm to the Doctor and he gave it an approving pat. She held a basket of hot rolls in the other arm. Rory was carrying a large thermos and a stack of bowls.

He set down the thermos on the stairs and snapped out the portable table he'd been carrying under one arm. He set it before the stairs, laid out the bowls, and poured hot tomato soup in each.

"I was too nervous to eat earlier, so I thought some food now would be a good idea," he explained. Amy passed around the rolls.

"Quite right!" the Doctor said, taking a roll and tearing into it. "Can't stop an alien invasion on an empty stomach!"

They had a short companionable picnic in the console room, variously sitting on the chairs, the stairs, or leaning against the console. The soup was warm and savory, the rolls fluffy and crusty. The good food relaxed them and, between the Doctor and Amy, they got to chatting.

Amy and Rory confirmed they were engaged. Dutch admitted he was looking forward to the birth of his first grandbaby and sheepishly dug out a prenatal photo and passed it around. It wasn't a sonogram but an actual clear photograph. The baby was sucking her thumb. Amy cooed. Rory gave it a professional nod of approval, and the Doctor admitted she was gorgeous.

With much prying they even manage to get out of Tildaith that he was married, and had a four month old son at home.

—————

Outside the sky thickened. Black rainclouds smothered the light, bringing a premature twilight. Rain swept down in sheets soaking the Tardis and runnelling away down the washed alley. Lightning cracked loudly enough to rattle the shop windows.

The pole at the corner sparked. And the lights went out.

—————

At the substation Janet propped her cast up on a spare folding chair and sipped at her lemonade, massaging her aching thigh. The wind rustled the wheat, it looked like a storm was brewing to the north.

The high pitched hum of the transformers suddenly stopped. The backup generators didn't kick in. She spilled her lemonade as she jumped up. Soldiers swarmed around the machines anxiously examining controls. Janet pushed her way through to the main control board. All the indicators were at zero.

Frantic, she stumped her way behind the banks of machines, "Check the linkages!" she yelled. Her trained crew scattered to check their work. She found the problem quickly enough. The generators hadn't been set up properly.

She turned and stared with dread toward the hive four miles away.

A single figure flew up out of the hive, up, up. There was no flash. No zap. No forcefield.

Suddenly a wave of Wirrn boiled up out of the hive, hundreds of them. A black mass. The power came back on and the field reengaged with a massive white zap that stunned the Wirrn still inside.

But it was already too late.

She barely had time to brace herself before the swarm descended.

—————

The first wave hit with a blur. The camouflage netting was ripped aside. The machine gun nests were overrun. Soldiers screamed. The air was a mass of whirring wings and darting bodies.

Janet was knocked over in the first rush. She crawled under the supply ATV that had been serving as a canteen. Her leg ached, her heart thundered, and her mouth tasted sour with fear.

Huge crashes came from outside as the Wirrn decimated the power equipment. One huge red transformer, weighing tons, suddenly dropped onto the fragile control systems, crushing them into a stinging explosion of parts. She ducked as a spring scratched past her ear.

The first wave passed and the few remaining Marines regrouped. Janet crawled to the outer edge of the ATV and peered out through the wheat at the hive. The forcefield was down, permanently this time. A seemingly endless stream of Wirrn were erupting from the hive.

Abruptly choppers decloaked, missiles fired, machine gun fire winnowed out the dense flight of wasps, until it broke apart, wasps scattering like a cloud, attacking the choppers, fighting back.

The insects were frantic, savage, fighting with a bloodlust Janet had never seen, far beyond what was needed.

The fight moved toward the substation as the choppers tried to defend the soldiers on the ground. Janet saw a wasp, near enough to see clearly, spin in the air and abruptly let something go.

A 50 lb. bag of fertilizer smashed into the chopper windshield, exploding into a cloud of gas. The chopper wobbled, gas leaking in through the broken glass. Wirrn swarmed it. It spun, tilting, and crashed into the wheat field. It exploded, flinging Wirrn and burning debris far and wide.

The fields caught fire.

—————

"Pleasant as this has been," Tildaith said, setting his bowl on the table. "I think we'd better get back to the farm."

Amy turned to look at the Tardis doorway. "But it's raining buckets out there. Wasn't the plan to wait three days to make sure all the Wirrn were back in the hive anyway? Surely we can wait until the storm's over."

—————

It only took minutes. That was the thing Janet would remember later. But now, as the fields burned around her, as more choppers went down and the sound of soldiers' screams diminished as they died, it seemed to take a forever of hell.

She crawled back to the inner edge of the ATV, eyes searching, hoping to find someone still alive.

Grover, her second in command, was crouched under the refreshment table, frantically reloading his magazine, a ragged red cut led up into his curly hairline, his helmet gone, her long-ago spilled glass of lemonade lying at his knee.

A giant Wirrn landed in front of him with a thump, it swept the table away with one foreleg and snatched Grover up by the throat with the other. He tried to bring up his machine gun, but the insect snatched it away and threw it like a matchstick.

The giant green wasp, the biggest she'd seen, shook the little man, hissing in his face with rage.

"You have destroyed our young, human, now we will destroy yours!"

He shook the man in fury, snapping his neck. He tossed the body aside.

Janet almost screamed when Grover landed right beside her, beside the ATV. He was dead, open eyes staring at her.

Gunfire, missile fire, and the chuff and whine of choppers and ATVs was drowned out by the buzzing of Wirrn wings.

Janet saw the giant Swarm Leader take to the skies. He followed the electrical lines north, toward the city. The swarm arrowed in his wake.

Janet fumbled out her phone, almost paralyzed with fear.

She hit speed dial.

"Daddy? Dad, the Wirrn, they broke out. They're on their way. They're going to kill the children!

"Oh my God!" she realized, she gripped the phone with both hands. "The creche! Dad, Amelia's creche -- it's on the south side of town -- the power lines lead right to it!"

*

* * *

If you're enjoying the story, please leave a comment below. 


	26. Chapter 26

"Where is she?" the Doctor demanded, inside the Tardis.

"Still at the transfer station. She says there's wounded," Dutch said, clutching his phone.

"Right!" the Doctor said, setting coordinates. "Hang on!"

The Tardis dematerialized with a roar and a rumbling of the interior.

—————

They returned to the Tardis, soot-smeared and grim, coughing. Smoke leaked into the doors behind them.

Rory carried Janet, her concerned father walking beside them. Amy turned to shut the doors and the Doctor bounded up to the console. He hauled the scanner around and started typing.

"Rory," the Doctor said, his voice rough, he coughed into his shoulder. "Take Janet to the sickbay and finish healing that leg. Dutch, go with him and tend to that burn. Tildaith is taking the last chopper with the survivors back to the farm for reinforcements. He'll catch us up."

The Doctor fine tuned the map on his monitor, he tapped a cluster of dots that appeared. "Hah!" he said, satisfied. "Got you."

He input some coordinates, and dematerialized.

—————

The Tardis materialized in an alley. They could hear the sounds of war already under way.

Janet made to run to the creche to protect her daughter. Dutch caught her in the mouth of the alley. He saw how the defenders across the street were trying to hold off the Wirrn with their bare hands.

"Follow me. Trust me, honey!" He grabbed her hand, backtracked, and smashed open the back window of a shop. The sheriff reached in, unlocked the door, and dragged her inside.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory ran for the street. Everywhere were screams, and sirens, and the deep angry drone of Wirrn wings.

Rory looked around helplessly. The Wirrn dove and darted, some shiny new, some with rags of flesh still peeling off them. Feyanorans were climbing up to the rooftops to get closer to their attackers, wielding everything from shotguns, to fire axes, to garden rakes.

Amy saw Mr. Wilkerson, the artist, wielding a chainsaw in each hand, laying about him with all the determination of the grim reaper.

People were hanging off fire escapes, throwing bricks from the street, and even grabbing darting Wirrn by the legs and pulling them down, piling on them by sheer numbers. Braining them with whatever heavy object came to hand.

"So what do we do?" Rory asked.

The Doctor looked around carefully. "Anything we can." He took Amy's hand. "Come on." They ran across the street toward the creche, chaos erupting all around them.

Amy craned her neck and saw the childlike Feyanorans running and jumping from one building rooftop to the next, taking the kind of daredevil chances with their young bodies that heavier grown-ups would never dare.

The Wirrn were taking their toll too. She saw one Wirrn crushed between two speeding cars while another Wirrn plucked a Feyanoran off the street and dropped her into the tangle of fire escapes from a great height. But not before the woman cut it badly with a bit of broken glass she'd snatched from the street.

The majority of the Wirrn focused on the creche building. A blocklike brick structure that looked like it could survive earthquakes. The advertising billboard on top of the building was the first thing to go, it toppled down into the street and crashed onto two cars.

Amy ducked and threw up a hand to ward off stinging shards of glass, the Doctor pulled her down and changed direction but kept going.

"They're so savage!" Amy said, not just the Wirrn, but the Feyanorans. They bared their teeth and screamed, gripping with hands and teeth, fighting with boards and stones, if they had nothing else.

"It's instinct!" the Doctor yelled back over the noise. He ducked behind a car and they stopped to get their breaths. "Protect the breeders. In races where one gender makes the babies, that gender is protected. Generally women in humans. Here, the creches have taken over that function, and there is not a man, woman, or child on Feyanora that wouldn't fight to the death to protect the creches."

A Wirrn flew down and snatched up the car they were hiding behind. They all fell backward. Rory flattened himself as the car swooped over him, no farther than his nose. "Good God!"

The Wirrn swung in a circle and flung the car at the creche wall. People screamed and ducked, the wall buckled, the crumpled car tumbled to the street. Wirrn advanced.

Every shattered creche window was suddenly filled with a wall of Feyanorans determined to keep the Wirrn out.

"They're on the roof!" a child's voice yelled from above.

The Air Force arrived with a volley of missiles, scattering the Wirrn, avoiding the creche, but shattering the buildings on either side. The Feyanorans didn't flinch but welcomed the pile of rubble as more ammunition to hurl at the Wirrn. Rory joined a human chain that was passing bits of rubble up a fire escape hand-to-hand for the people at the top to throw down on the Wirrn trying to break into the creche roof.

"This way!" the Doctor yelled over the cacophony. He and Amy scrambled up the fire escape past the chain of small defenders.

Amy looked out over the railing. She saw Janet and Dutch emerge from the shop and blaze their way across the street with shotgun blasts, bringing down Wirrn who were attempting to force their way into the creche. Father and daughter were both covered in bandoliers and ammunition from the gunshop.

They reached the shattered windows, and the defenders absorbed them inside.

Shots started firing from the windows, and Amy realized Dutch had passed out the weapons and ammo he and Janet had strapped around themselves before their run.

When she and the Doctor reached the roof, Amy saw the choppers had drawn off some of the Wirrn, they were now engaged in aerial combat with the helicopters -- machine guns rattled as the choppers tried to cut down the swift darting wasps. But the Wirrn were used to fighting human aircraft now. They flew up from below and grabbed the undercarriage, crawling up and pulling the soldiers out of the open cabs before crawling in after the pilots.

More than one chopper went down, the dying pilot struggling to avoid the creche, while the Wirrn tried to aim for it.

The Doctor leaned over the roof buttress and saw that the choppers hadn't drawn off all the Wirrn. There was still a group on the creche rooftop. The Feyanorans were pelting them with everything they could throw, their weapons had run out of ammunition, but the Wirrn had managed to rip off one of the ventilation covers on the creche roof. As they watched, one of the Wirrn started wriggling down into the hole.

The Doctor yanked out his sonic screwdriver and twisted something on it savagely. "Everyone down!" he yelled, his voice magnified more than a human could project. He threw the screwdriver over the wall to the creche roof and yanked Amy down behind the parapet, covering her ears with his hands.

A hard shock wave slammed into the building, like a sonic boom, the air ripped at her hair, and loose masonry crumbled from the top of the parapet.

The Doctor stood up and looked over. Stunned Wirrn were falling out of the sky. The Wirrn on the rooftop were all stunned, lying blown in a circle around the slagged screwdriver. The Wirrn half down the ventilation shaft lay still, legs splayed -- half in -- half out of the hole.

A chopper, which had floundered in the shock of the sonic wave, got control of itself and landed on the rooftop while the airspace was clear of defending Wirrn.

Child-sized militiamen poured out, clad in combat armor and helmets, armed with machine guns, one of them had pale blond hair. They indiscriminately shot all the helpless Wirrn on the rooftop. They dragged the invading Wirrn out of its hole and shot its head into a mass of pulp.

Amy looked up at the Doctor, worried how the show of savagery would affect him. He was grim, his lips were pressed tight, his face turned to stone.

A trickle of blood oozed out of one ear.

—————

“How did they even know this was a creche?" Amy asked in the aftermath of the battle, standing on the roof.

"Wirrn aren't without technical knowledge," the Doctor said. "And they make hives for keeping their developing embryos. Besides, the Big Baby sign probably tipped them off."

He pointed at the huge, toppled billboard with its picture of a baby and rows of incubators that had been on top of the building.

"They were in the mood for a bit of wanton destruction and got lucky," he said.

Amy looked around at the devastation. "Define lucky."

—————

The remaining airborne Wirrn fled. Everyone cheered as the choppers and surviving ATVs gave chase. The Doctor grinned and waved when he saw a pink, disk-shaped craft join the chase. It rolled a greeting in response.

"Hah! Schwillic..." Amy's comment was cut off as the Doctor yelled, "Amy! Look out!" He tackled her aside, and Amy shrieked as a giant green streak flashed by and knocked the Doctor over the parapet.

"Doctor!" Amy screamed and reached for him as he fell in the clutches of a huge Wirrn she recognized only too well. The Wirrn flew down the side of the building, it started to swoop up and away with its struggling Time Lord burden.

Amy panicked, terrified of where the Wirrn would take him. "Rory!" she screamed and pointed.

Rory looked up from his rubble pile at the base of the building and saw the problem. He hefted a brick, took aim and threw. The brick hit the Wirrn in the head, spinning it, the Doctor whirled out of its grasp and crashed into the fire escape on the side of the building. The metal railing rammed into his ribs, knocking the breath out of him. He scrabbled for a handhold, feet kicking air. He slipped. His hearts beat wildly at memories of falling, of being shattered on the ground...

He was grabbed by a plethora of small Feyanoran hands.

The childlike locals wrestled him onto the stairs. "Thank you," he gasped, breathing in great gulps. Grateful for the feel of the hard metal stairs jabbing into his back. He could hear Amy's greater weight clanging down the stairs toward him. Rory yelled out, "Doctor!" as he charged up. The Doctor struggled to his feet. He righted his choking bow tie and reclipped one of his braces.

Amy and Rory met him in the middle but the Doctor fought off their concerned hands and floundered his way down the stairs.

Methuselah had landed in the street, saved only by crashing into the windshield of a car, rather than onto the concrete below.

The giant insect stood up and shook itself, raining off shards of glass.

The Doctor hushed Amy and Rory's protests, and straightened his jacket. He stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered over to the giant insect.

"There's no need for all this, you know," the Doctor said as he came within earshot. He walked calmly up to the Wirrn and stopped just beyond arm's reach.

The alien glared at him through huge insectoid eyes. "There is every need. Your filthy electrical barrier destroyed our pupae! Even the young adults who were in molt succumbed to the electrical field in the air. Did you once stop to think what that kind of field would do to the developing young?!"

"I knew you were susceptible to electricity..." he admitted.

"So you used it on _children_?!" the Wirrn said.

"It was never intended to harm anyone..." the Doctor said softly.

"Doctor!" Amy yelled. "We haven't got time for this! Feel guilty _later!_ "

The Doctor turned and nodded. "Quite right." He turned back around, directly into a faceful of gas. He blinked, and looked up at Methuselah with disappointment. The Wirrn's proboscis was smoking, he blew another wave of gas into the Doctor's face.

The Doctor just stared at him, eyes open, breathing it in. "That's not going to work on me you know," he said, infuriatingly.

"Apparently not," the Swarm Leader said.

The giant Wirrn lunged at the Doctor.

The Doctor ducked, dodged, twisted and was suddenly behind the Wirrn.

He gripped one of its wings, flipping it over in two fingers. A quick glance studied the black-veined, crystal-clear structure.

"What's with the wings?" he asked casually, as if the creature hadn't just attacked him.

Methuselah whirled around to confront him, whipping the wing out of his curious fingers. It folded its wings out of the Doctor's reach.

"Last time I met you lot you didn't have wings," the Doctor said.

"And where was that?" the Wirrn asked ominously.

"On a space station, long way from here," the Doctor flicked a hand negligently to indicate how far away.

The Wirrn's wings suddenly crinkled and furled, curling into compact wrinkled membranes that receded into slits high on the back of the thorax and sealed off.

"In space, we do not need our wings," the Wirrn said.

The Doctor nodded an admiration. "Very neat. I did wonder how you landed on planets without becoming very bruised."

"Your levity is not appreciated human," the Wirrn said.

"Ah, well, it so often isn't. And I'm not human," he corrected casually, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Dutch was sneaking up behind the Wirrn, Rory was sneaking up from a different angle, the Doctor tried to keep the insect distracted.

"It's a big universe," the Doctor said earnestly. "You don't have to compete for a place in it. You can go somewhere humans will never find you."

"Humans always find us. We have to make a stand somewhere," the Swarm Leader said.

"But not here," the Doctor pointed out. "Not where they were already here first."

" _We_ were here first in Andromeda. This is _our_ home. _They_ are the invaders."

The Doctor couldn't argue with that.

"Please, for the sake of peace. I can take you away, find you a new home, new systems to migrate, where humans will never find you."

"It's too late for that," Methuselah said - his human taint showing. "Now it's kill or be killed."

Methuselah pulled out Rory's gun and pressed it between the Doctor's eyebrows.

The Doctor sighed. “ _This_ is why I hate guns," he muttered to himself. There was a gunshot. The Doctor flinched. Methuselah fell slowly to the side, half his head blown away.

Behind him, Dutch holstered his gun. "Your choice."

The Doctor stared down at the magnificent creature at his feet, then looked at the blonde 12 year old boy. "That wasn't necessary."

Dutch's child's face settled into the lines of the 56 year old warrior he was, father, grandfather, and sworn protector of the peace.

"They invaded our world, kidnapped and killed our people, and threatened our children. What would you have me do?"

The Doctor looked down sadly at the body at his feet - then around at the carnage. Buildings, people, and Wirrn all destroyed.

"Why doesn't anybody ever just listen?" he said softly, "Why can't we all just get along?"

—————

Tildaith landed with his troops, Jeff and Peterson in tow, squads of black-kevlar clad soldiers scoured the streets, mopping up the last of the Wirrn. Captain Morris stalked through the wreckage, her white-blond hair coming loose under her helmet. Any Wirrn that so much as twitched was shot.

The Doctor was standing, shoulders slumped. He was frowning, but didn't interfere. Tildaith walked up beside him. "There's a reason the troops call her the 'Angel of Death,'" he said, nodding at the grim, white-haired girl. He slapped the Doctor on the back, not heartily, but in consolation. "You tried, Doctor. We all tried. Some things are not meant to be. Leave the cleaning up to us. Go with Dutch, go see what you've saved, not what was lost."

The Doctor looked over to Dutch who was standing by the shattered creche doorway, watching him. With a nod at the dark-haired colonel, the Doctor turned and followed the sheriff.

Amy and Rory followed quietly behind.

—————

They found Janet deep inside the underground creche wards. There were rank upon rank of high-tech oval artificial creches locked into cradles all around them. The machines, with silvery domed tops, and complex controls dotted all around their surface, looked more like bombs than anything a baby would come out of.

But ragged doctors and nurses were scattered all along the long aisle, terrified families were hovering over their designated creches, as the doctors and nurses went up and down the tiers carefully checking all the readings. Amy looked away when one of the doctors shook his head sadly at a nearby couple. The boy and girl started crying, turning to each other and clinging in despair.

They found Janet sitting on the floor at the far end of the aisle, a corner of the ceiling had come down, striking a dent into the vulnerable oval creche at that end on the left. The silvery top of the machine was popped up, the inside was slimy, and fluid dribbled out onto the floor. Janet sat on the cement floor, oblivious.

She was holding a baby, tiny, wrinkled, with a delicate whirl of black curls plastered to her head from the birth caul.

She was red, she was screaming, and she was alive!

Janet wrapped herself around the wet, bawling scrap of humanity and cried.

—————

Dutch knelt down beside his daughter and granddaughter and gathered them into his brawny arms.

"Come on," the Doctor whispered to Amy and Rory. "There's one last thing we can do."

—————

The Tardis materialized on a wet, soot-blackened plain.

"Stay here," the Doctor said firmly, with a downward motion of his hand that brooked no denial. He left them standing within the threshold of the Tardis, peering out, eyes wide.

An army of Wirrn covered the plain. Thousands upon thousands of them. The fields of wheat were gone, burned, leaving only rain-soggy ash. The hive had already half-collapsed behind them.

The Doctor splashed through the sooty puddles and calmly confronted the army of Wirrn.

He looked at the large Wirrn closest to him. "You weren't the only hive, were you?" the Doctor said, as if he wasn't surprised.

"No," replied Gandhi. "We numbered in the thousands when we entered this world. Most established hives in the uninhabited lands, using the native herbivores as hosts. Our numbers are fewer now, and none of the offspring survived."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "I never intended the barrier to harm anyone."

"You are not to blame. Every hive was affected.

"The Swarm Leader was an aberration, born in war and destroyed by war,” the large, patient Wirrn said. “Had we not heeded him, more of us would have survived. He will become an object lesson, an abomination.

"We wish only to leave this place of death. We only wish to continue our migration, to find clean worlds far from the humans, where we may breed in peace."

"Let me help," the Doctor said. "I can at least transport the wounded who won't survive space."

"There's no need," Gandhi said. "Those who could not change, died."

The Doctor nodded. "Then go in peace. Never come back here. The humans are warned now, they'll be watching. And if that communications satellite survived, use it to warn others of your race away from this planet."

Gandhi nodded and unfurled his wings. "There's nothing for us here."

Like a wave, the Wirrn took to the skies, spiraling up, out of the world. Betrayed, broken, and defeated. Only the strangers watched them go.

—————

The Doctor stayed, looking at the stars for a long time. He slouched back to the Tardis, looking worn.

Amy and Rory gave him a wary berth. The Doctor leaned against the Tardis railing, he rubbed his eyes wearily, and plucked out the contacts. He dropped them in his pocket and pulled out a large handkerchief, he snorted forcefully into it, then dug the filters out of his nose.

"Ugh!" Rory said. "I forgot you had those."

"I didn't," the Doctor said. He took in a big sniff through his nose, filling his lungs. "Ah, that's better!" He grinned. He folded the kerchief up and stuffed it in his pocket. He ran his hands through his hair. "I need a swim. All that gas is going to start decaying soon." He pushed away from the railing and started up the stairs.

"Do you think they'll find another world?" Amy asked abruptly. "Some other breeding ground? Someplace safe from humans?" Despite herself, she'd liked that one Wirrn.

"Bound to," the Doctor said, he stopped and turned towards them. "There's worlds enough for everyone." He give her a very old smile. "While there's life there's hope."

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If you're enjoying the story, please leave a comment below. 


	27. Chapter 27

**Epilogue**

The Doctor ran with a pointy party hat on his head, in a game of tag being played by three generations of 12-year-olds.

"Tag, Doctor, you're it!" Dutch yelled with glee and darted aside as the Doctor took a cheerful swipe at him.

"Oh, no!" Amy and Rory looked at each other. The Doctor was _it_. They both bolted for the sidelines and took themselves out of the game.

They strolled over to the refreshment table in the large backyard, laughing over their shoulders at the image of the Doctor, surrounded by a group of 40 agile 12-year-olds, all darting back and forth as he tried to tag someone. It looked like a game of "Bait the Bear."

A cheerful, roundfaced, 12-year-old girl with brassy-blonde curls handed them both small cups of punch.

"Are you having fun?" she asked, in her best hostess voice.

"Oh yes, Candy. This is great. Thank you for inviting us," Rory said.

"I've never been to a party like this before," Amy said, gesturing over the large yard filled with children.

And some of them _were_ children. A group of six-year-olds clustered around the swings, a section of toddlers played, supervised, in a sandbox beside it. 10-year-olds skulked about their secretive, mischievous party plans. And everywhere, 12-year-olds. Dozens of them. Dutch's family lived in a two-story multigenerational house, customary here the Doctor had said, in a world where young children could be almost as large as the adults.

All these people were cousins and friends and neighbors. Not even Dutch's house could hold them all. But as she looked out over the amazing birthday party, it _looked_ like she and Rory and the Doctor were the only adults here, (although she wasn't sure she could count the Doctor in on that, as he tripped over his own feet and went rolling, yet still stretched out his hands trying to tag anyone in reach, sending the gamers giggling and screaming away.)

As Amy looked around she realize she could sort of tell their ages now. Even though they all looked like kids. The "old folks" sitting in the lawn chairs at the edges of the crowd, talking, the spider-thin wrinkles and gray hair only barely noticeable. The teenagers with their oversized shoes, rockstar T-shirts and surly, superior attitudes. The parents. And the truly 12-year-old 12-year-olds.

Blond, ponytailed, 12-year-old looking Janet, (who Amy now knew was actually older than her, at 28.) Came walking up holding an adorable one-year-old girl with jet black curls.

"Hello, Amelia," Rory said, bending down and chucking the little heartthrob on the nose. "How is the birthday girl?"

Amelia grinned at him and hid her face in her mother's neck, peering out at him with one flirtatious big blue eye.

"She's gorgeous, Janet," Amy said. She grinned as the little girl kept flirting with Rory and he kept being wound effortlessly around her tiny finger.

The Doctor bounced up to them, out of breath, but grinning like a loon. "Happy Birthday!" he said expensively. With an elaborate flicker of his arms he whipped a huge gaudy artificial flower out of his sleeve and presented it to Janet.

He solemnly shook baby Amelia's tiny hand. She stared up at him with wide-eyed fascination and trepidation. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially to her. "Keep the name. It's a good name." He tapped the baby on the nose gently. Turned and grinned at Amy. Then whirled and ran back into the crowd of 12-year-olds. "Who's up for a game of "Crack the Whip?" he yelled.

Janet wandered off to show her baby to the other guests. Candy turned to serve some cake to a pair of 8-year-old twins.

"So," Rory said, leaning close to Amy, looking out over the backyard full of children. "How many kids do you want to have?"

Amy gave him a repressive look.

THE END

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_I hope you enjoyed the world of Feyanora. Please let me know what you thought in the box below._  
_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._


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